Excerpt: <still looking for a title>

When Taylor opens his eyes, thin slivers of light lay across his bed and body from the edges of the blackout curtains and the street lamp outside. The air is cool enough to prickle his skin with goosebumps. He’s dimly aware that someone else is in the room with him, and he knows who it is before he even rolls over.

“Bon nuit, Mistah Lavoie. Ça va?”

Taylor twists over onto his back and stretches, long limbs splaying across the covers. He sits up and folds them back in towards his body.

“Evening, Baron.”

Sitting at the foot of his bed, cross legged with the tails of his coat neatly spread on the bed behind him, top hat tipped just so, cane across his thighs and gloved hands lapping each other on the cane, is the Baron Samedi, impressive and commanding even in his current compact pose. He smiles, bright white against skin as dark as fertile soil, small gap between his front teeth, and his eyes—dark, dimly glowing like a shadow in amber resin—glint behind his bleached and yellowing skull mask.