the heavy oak door with the number thirteen on it creaks only slightly when opened. behind it are stair, reaching up into oblivion-- well, at least up two stories or so. The stairwell is dark, dimly lit, smelling of dust and age. The stairs are made of dark, well-worn antique wood. The walls are painted green, faded and peeling in places.

The stairs creek as they are walked on.

Up the long flight of stairs is a small anteroom, where Nero eventually stops. It's the floor is an old green carpet, the wood moulding dark with age. There's a coat closet to either side and another oak door ahead. The brass doorknob gleams, out of place.

Not only the doorknobs, but Max feels out of place as well. It's quiet, and the atmosphere feels eerie to him. Maybe because he's so... ordinary, and this place isn't.

"What is this place?" he asked in a whisper. It seemed sacreligious to speak in a louder voice.

"It's a club," Nero says succinctly. He moves to shrugs off his coat, then pauses.

The god turns to Max. "Do you feel more comfortable talking to me in this," he indicates the body of Max's deceased friend, "Or do you mind if I take it off here?"

Max did feel more comfortable talking to him as Jon, but once again he was curious. Taking his own coat off, he replied, "No, that's fine."

He hung his coat up, waiting, feeling... wrong.

Nero nods and steps into the closet himself, leaning against a wall. A slight frown creases his features and, for a moment, nothing happens.

Then the white drains out of his eyes like soap suds down a drain, and the body goes limp, sliding down the inside wall of the closet a few inches. Jon Gallo's brown eyes stare sightlessly out of the closet.

Then there is a faint light, just outside the closet. Smoke condenses out of thin air-- opaque smoke that swirls into a clumn of white and black, then solidifies in a flash. it's a tall young man standing there, now-- pale-white, wearing dark-black. He's skinny-- gaunt, almost skeletal, really. He's taller than the body of Jon, made to seem taller still by his rail-thin frame. He's wearing simple, close-fitting black jeans and a simple, close-fitting black shirt. His hair is bleached white, gelled up loosely.

His eyes are the same white as Nero's has been, in the body of Jon. he seems young, he seems old, he seems almost ageless.

The God stretches and grins. "Much better," he says in a voice that lies at right angles to reality.

Max's mouth went slack, staring at the Real Thing. He looked between the Thing and Jon. 'There's his brown eyes,' InnerMax whispered.

Max cleared his throat, looking up into the face of Thing. "So... what do I call you now?"

The God laces bone-thin fingers together and stretches again, in a way that would cause an audible crack in a human-- or in him, if he were bothering with it.

"Azrael, if you like... it's a current favourite."

There's definitely something wrong with that voice, when compared to, for example, Jon's warm tones. There's just something wrong with it in general, really-- the way it slices through the air, like a cold knife through silk.

It was bad enough when it was just the eyes, but now he has to deal with a voice? Maybe Max should have just asked him to stay in Jon.

"Azrael," he repeated, trying it out. It seemed easy enough.

He looked around, wondering. "...Now what?"

Azrael gestures to the door, grabs the knob and twists it open.

"We go in."

The room behind the door is low-ceilinged, dimly-lit, and empty. The entire thing has a dark green decor. Sahded lamps hang down from the ceiling here and there. the walls are lined with mis-matched wooden tables and chairs, some of which are padded with green, others of which are just the wood.

Over in the middle of the room, against one wall, is the bar-- also made of dark, antique wood. Glasses hang all around it, and its surrounded by green-padded stools.

The entire place gives the impression that, when busy, it would be filled with lurking tobacco smoke.

The emptiness only added to the eerie atmosphere. "Is it closed?" Max asked, looking around. He had his hands shoved into his pockets, now that he had no coat pockets to take refuge in.

He was unsure whether he should sit at a table to the bar, or what. Max really was kind of pathetic, especially around It.

His indecision doesn't seem to matter, as Azrael moves to a seat at the bar with general confidence. He moves pretty much the same way as he does in Jon's body, only with a bit more lankiness to make use of.

"The Trisk's never closed. There just isn't anyone here right now." Azrael offers Max a smile. There's even less humanity in the expression than there is when he's wearing Jon's body.

Max hesitated, then took a seat next to Azrael.

"Why is this place hidden? Is it illegal, or something?" He hoped not. Max was incredibly fearful of the law.

Azrael leans over the counter from his seat and reaches a long arm under the bar. When he leans back, he has a brown-glass bottle in his fingers.

"Illegal?" He smiles. "Heh... no. It's sort of a private place, for the Inni--" he pauses. "For magical types."

He snatches two small glasses from a shelf on the inside of the bar and places them down, uncorking the glass bottle. Yes, it does have a cork instead of a more modern seal.

Max stared at the cork. He'd never seen one like that.

"What were you going to say? Inni-?"

Azrael sets the cork on the table and pours a very small amount of brown-gold liquid from the bottle into both of the shot-glasses on the counter.

"Innish. It's a slang term for the people you never knew existed. Here, try this." He shoves one of the glasses in Max's direction.

As has been established, Max was more of a coffee drinker. Taking the glass gingerly and holding it up to the light so he could look through it, he was skeptical. 'Being a man' and all that, he took a large gulp, only to sputter and cough as soon as it had seared down his throat. All thoughts of innish were pushed faaar away.

Max never was a drinker.

"What is that?" he asked through teary eyes. "It's strong." Cough.

"It's old," Azrael assesses. "They don't make it anymore. Either the recipe's been lost, or health concerns got more important."

He grins at the sputtering Max.

Cough cough. "I think it was the health concerns." Max set the glass down, pushing it away from himself. He didn't want another drink.

"Do they have any water here?" Cough coughcoughcough cough.

"Yeah, here." The god places one hand on the counter and vaults over it, then rummages around behind it for a glass. He turns and finds the tap, twisting the handle and filling the glass with cold water.

He slides it down to counter to Max, and then slides over the counter himself, returning to his seat.

Max took another large gulp, though this time there was no searing. Only cool, clear, life-giving water. "Thanks," he said, setting down the half-emptied (half-filled?) glass.

"You haven't taken a drink yet. You knew, didn't you?"

Azrael gives Max an appraising look, then lefts the still-uncorked bottle itself and takes a chug.

Setting it down, he wipes his mouth off and replies, "This isn't really a body like yours. No reason it should have the same reactions."

He pauses. "And, of course I knew."

Max is impressed. No other way to explain it: he is impressed. One drink had him close to coughing his skull out, and Azrael here at just downed... well, a lot.

"Another study on human behavior?"

'I didn't use to be this cynical,' he thought to himself.

No, but I was, replied InnerMax.

"Not really. I'm not sinister all the time, you know" he says, in direct contrast to appearances.

"And don't look so impressed. If I tried that in Jon, I'd probably still be coughing... unless your buddy was a heavy drinker?"

"He had his moments." The lack of sinister motives came as a slight surprise to Max, but he tried to cover it up.

And now, for another excitingly stupid question from Max: "Do you actually digest the stuff you... consume?"

Tune in next time...

"No. We don't, unless we make up all the proper equipment for doing so, et cetera, and that's a pain for a little digestion."

He grins, looking amused by the mortal's curiosity and which specific places it goes.

Max's next question would have been where it went... but he didn't ask it. He was feeling ignorant enough as it was, and he was sure the... supernatural thing didn't like so many questions. At least, he wouldn't.

"How many of you gods are there?" It just kind of popped out of him.

So much for not asking so many questions.

"Our numbers grow and shrink," azrael says, tilting his head to one side and resting it on his hand.

"There are seven real gods right now, and a bunch of upstarts who wish they could be one of the big seven. That's us... Death, Sex, Drugs, Rock&Roll, Knowledge, War and Technology." He calls them by the names Max is most likely to understand-- the names of what they control.

Max frowned. "Only seven?" Then he smiled. "Seven. Seems kind of ironic. Biblically fitting, too."

He took another drink of water, his throat no longer burning. He cleared his throat, alsmot as if he was trying it out again.

"There've been more. There've been less." He pauses, and leaves it at that.

More, hm? Max wondered what else there had been gods of. Discord? Life? Projectile vomiting?

As said before, Max was never really much of a drinker. Also, he'd taken a rather large drink. As a result, Max was feeling just a bit tipsy. Not raving drunk, mind you, just a bit loosened.

"So, Azrael, what do you do for fun?"

"Appropriate the dead bodies of attractive young men who aren't using them anymore and go out on the town." Well, that was rather succinct.

The grin lurking in his expression suggests the mischief that drove him to answer such.

Max nodded like he knew what he was talking about. "Yes, yes, I hear that popular these days."

"Do you kill, or just clean up the messes left behind? 'Cause I mean, just cleaning up has got to be kinda boring, don't you think?"

"I take souls." This isn't really an answer one way or another.

"Yeah, it does get borgin after a while. Hence the various passtime." He frowns, slightly annoyed that the guy hadn't caught his reference to taking Jon's body.

Poor Max was a bit too far gone. He really could not hold his liquor. He grabbed the glass with alcohol, taking a drink.

AHHH more searing. He giggled, once the pain had gone away. "You must have a lot of hobbies." He took another drink.

"Got anymore of this?"

"not the least of which is getting mortals drunk, apparently."

He jabs the bottle with one long, bony finger and it refills itself.

"Don't worry, you won't die of alcohol poisoning. At least, not for long."

"Sounds like a good deal."

Max took a drink, then stopped and raised his glass, gasping out a "Cheers!" before taking another drink.

"Good enough, good enough," Azrael agrees.

"So... is this your first brush with magic?" His gesture incorporates both the Triskele and, more importantly, himself.

"Yyyyep, you'd be the first." Amazing, really, how quickly Max got drunk. "And I hope to God it's my last. But it won't be, will it?" He laughed, taking another drink.

"Maybe some water, now..." he muttered, taking a drink from the other glass.

Don't forget, puking comes next. InnerMax always had to ruin the fun.

"Probably not. Once you know it exists, you start to notice it. once you start to notice it..." a terrible grin, one of his best. "You'll notice it's everywhere."

"Hm. Maybe I can go all ostrich and just stick my head in the sand. Or under my pillow." Another drink, tilting back a bit too far and nearly falling off the chair. Giggle, laugh.

"I think I've had a bit too much to drink..."