He sat at his desk, listening to the voices and music through the wall. Laughter echoed, the shrill screams of delight close behind. The clink of glassware as drinks were poured and the scent of sweet smoke from burning cigars. The revelry of the masses, packing the bar thick. With them came other unfamiliar faces he hadn’t quite learned to block or filter through. Specters moved through his wall, their pleading eyes seeking his own, their mouths moving rapidly, struggling to speak through whatever void separated them, but he was unable to hear them. He kept his gaze pointedly on the open ledgers before him, running through the numbers and accounts silently. Disheveled black hair tangled around his face, his long coat was thrown over the back of his chair, leaving his dark shirt open to the cool night air. The black cane rested against the desk, easily within his grasp if he needed it.

A featherlight touch brushed against the tension in his neck, eerily familiar, breaking his concentration. He turned to see Amara’s face, half beautiful and familiar, a smile on her lips. The other half also smiled, skin ripped away to expose a haunting skeletal grin. Her empty eye socket seemed to glare, staring down at him with rage, pushing its way into his blackened soul. A familiar knife was pressed into her still bleeding chest, one hand clutched to its hilt. Her face was a breath away from his, what remained of her mouth mockingly close. He sat frozen, as though he could no longer control the muscles in his own body.

Long skeletal fingers reached for him, jagged sharp nails that threatened to rip his throat apart. He lurched from the seat, his shadows coiling around him defensively when a knock sounded at the door. The woman was gone, as though she’d never stood there at all. Matthias sighed heavily, feeling the cold sweat that had broken out over his flesh. Frustrated, he grabbed the cane and limped towards the door, pulling it open without a word.

A familiar face greeted him, savior and warden all in one. The dead woman who’d saved his life so long ago. He could feel his soul call out at the sight of her, part of him aching and grateful for her gift. The other recoiled, angry and bitter at the sight of her for pulling him from death’s grasp in that unhallowed field. Matthias knew he had been meant to die there beside his family. He wasn’t sure if Amara haunted him from her gift or because of the dark powers he’d foolishly tried to use to bring her back, corroding her sweet soul into the venomous thing she had become. He should have known she was close by with so many spirits wondering about. "Persephone," he spoke her name, a mix of reverence and disdain, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"