It is a terrible thing to stand in a fresh grave and mistake the dirt walls for the walls of your castle.

Frank Hammett sits inside the smoky warmth of the Messenger’s Tavern, nursing a heavy pour and talking baseball. Blind to the fact that it is in reality a slow, cosmic burial masquerading as a warm neighborhood bar room, and that the final lease on his existence has already expired.

A detective can spend his whole life tracking down other people’s secrets, while his own quietly find a way to track him down.

For Frank, the only real life left inside him is the ropy, stagnant fluid he just tilted back into his throat—

People have spent centuries looking for the fountain of youth, this elixir promises something different.

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