.

Hardhands did not like children. This dislike was nothing personal; he didn't like chicken either, or rainy days, or socks that were too tight. In fact, if asked to rank dislikes he would have put these last three higher up on this list, easily. But then that was partially because chicken, rainy days and socks that were too tight intruded more often into his life. Children did not.  Still, his little experience with children, confined mostly to Tiny Doom—his two year old neice—had left him quite firm on the matter.

 Hardhands did like dogs. He also liked sleeping late, double mochas, and scrambled eggs, particularly the way that Paimon made them, creamy and cheesy, and particular on a late morning after a later night, after a particularly good show. Last night's show had more than particularly good, it had been fantastic, brilliant, fabulous, superlative. The drums had rolled like thunder through the crowded club, crushing all before them, and his voice had balanced perfectly on the knife's edge of the guitar, cutting and quick. The invocation had been so superlatively heavy that the band had managed to manifest the daemon Forneaus, who had produced the most killer bass solo ever heard at the Poodle Dog.The show was so fabulous that half the audience had staggered out into the early morning street with blood streaming from their ears, agog in bliss.

Definitely one for the ages.

He helped himself to more eggs out of the silver chafing dish. He was humming the bass line to Bury Me in Immortal Oblivion. If he had been asked what could ruin his perfectly good mood, he would have said, in between egg and coffee, absofikinglutely nothing.

That was before Tiny Doom joined him at the table, demanding bear-shaped waffles and strawberries.