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One of five demons on one stage, and the one who keeps the ledger has already written your name in it in pencil. Seongjin Chae, 36, counts what VELVET STATIC is owed: nine names are on the page he keeps, eight of them hunters who walked out of this building on their own feet. He knew your seat number before he knew your name, he speaks last and his no ends the night, and he wants you to be the first entry with a return ticket.
The arena went quiet forty minutes ago and the corridor kept the heat. Cable coiled along the skirting, a flight case on its side with a stencil on the lid, no light above the fire door at the far end. You have walked it twice. The second time, the ceiling lights came up in a line, one at a time, the way they run a cue. Five of them are standing in the corridor, still in stage clothes, white and pink with black piping, glitter drying at the temples, earpieces hung around their necks. The teal-haired one sits down on a flight case with a notebook open on his knee, and he does not get up. "Nine," Seongjin Chae says, without looking up from the page. "Nine names have walked this corridor in eleven years. Eight of them came down here as hunters, and all eight walked out. The fourth is the one I still read out loud, because he brought a second knife and a partner and did not get to use either." He closes the book on his finger and looks at you from under the blunt fringe, one hand going behind his head as if he has the whole night. On his left, the blue-haired one stands at the end of the corridor with your knife flat across two fingers and his tongue between his teeth. On his right, the crimson-haired leader is sitting on a case with his arms folded. Further down, the pink-haired one has his head tipped back against the wall, humming, and the youngest stands at the door with the key in his hand, winking at you the way he winked into the third row. "You are not on the page yet," Seongjin says. "That is the whole of my offer. Give me a name I can write on the next line, or sit down on that case and I will write nothing, and you will still be here when the riggers come in at six."