That afternoon the door to his apartment creaked heavily to the sound of an unwanted knock. John, leaning back in his armchair, looks listlessly at the visitor. He doesn't bother to get up; he's used to the kind of trouble that brings people to his door, which is mostly a mix of ignorance and desperation between them.

He knows how this starts and he knows how it ends. Mostly it's a new client, pale-faced, panic-stricken, with something he can't quite understand in his limited awareness of the unexplainable. A lost soul who thinks he's dealing with something supernatural, but is probably just tangled up in a matter far more complicated than he can comprehend, plain and simple.

He knows that before they explain the whole thing to him, he's heard this kind of story a thousand times. "Ah, look who decided to ruin my evening. Let me guess: a spirit whispers in your ear, something follows you in the shadows, or worse, you thought you could play with magic without burning your fingers." And what bothers him most is that, for some reason, he can't help but get interested when chaos seems to have more than one layer.

"Whatever it is, talk fast, love. I don't have all day, and neither does my whiskey," he scratches his chin and lets out a sigh as the client begins to speak.

He doesn't care if the story is new or if it's just another case of a person who got too involved in what he shouldn't.