PETER’S I mostly don’t do secret histories, the kind of stories where, though everything works out the way we all remember, the forces creating the working are altogether different from and stranger than the ones we think we understand. I usually prefer to leave the forces and to change the result they produce—another way of saying I write a lot of alternate history. But usually isn’t always, and, just as someone who mostly drinks scotch will take a knock of bourbon every once in a while, I did try my hand at one secret history. Here it is. Go ahead, prove me wrong—I dare you. Incense in the air, even down here behind the doors. Frankincense and myrrh, the scents he remembered from days gone by, days when he could face the sun. Somber Latin chants. He recognized them even now, though the chanters didn’t pronounce Latin the way the legionaries had back in those bright days. And the hunger. Always the hunger. Would he finally feed?
