The Silk Diamond

III: Master Of The House

When Kirian blearily opened his eyes, he found himself in the Silk Room—what he had named the room that housed the portrait of the previous owner.

He looked at his watch noticing that it was a quarter to nine the next morning. He picked the glass he had been drinking out of off the floor and took it over to the decanters. He needed a drink. Breakfast of Champions.

He poured more of the ancient scotch and walked in front of the portrait of Kallan Silk. He took a drink, "Someone was a bit vain, wasn't he".

The portrait jiggled a bit.

"No, he most certainly was not. I never even wanted my portrait painted. It was all father's idea. Besides, since when is healthy self esteem a bad thing? It not like you can talk, lieutenant hair of the dog."

Kirian's head snapped at the unfamiliar voice. He glanced around the room and saw no one. He clenched his drink, white knuckled.

He swallowed and put his drink down on the coffee-table, which he was sure wasn't there a day before. Maybe I should stop drinking. He must have been losing his grip. Kirian looked around and then slowly looked up. There he saw none other than Kallan Gabriel Silk laying across the ceiling just as simple as one might lay across a bed with premium pillows and thousand thread count sheets. His icy blue eyes glimmered in the post dawn light that poured through the windows.

His hair was blonde, in a messy and tousled style, nothing like the picture of perfection that his portrait seemed to suggest. He looked as though he had shaven a few days before and it was not yet time for another proper shave, though his reddish stubble was peaking through. And his smile, it was enchanting. Straight as the horizon, and white as the driven snow.

His complexion was alabaster. His jaw was square, like it had been carved that way when Michelangelo made him. He looked more like a Calvin Klein ad than whatever it was that he was. He wore a white button down shirt adorned with a black bowtie and a pair of black slacks. His shoes were brown. It was church attire, which wasn't particularly surprising since according to the story Roger Carson had told, Kallan Silk was a priest of some kind. Kirian shouted in shock.

"What the hell?!"

"What a peculiar way to introduce ones' self", said Kallan Silk.

Kirian looked at the scotch in his hand and shook his head as if to say, I've finally lost it. His hand began to tremble. Kirian, let's grab hold of reality and take it for a ride. Searching around the room for some explanation, Kirian tried not to hyperventilate. There had to be wires. There had to be a projector somewhere. Because, yes, he was an attractive accomplished man who drank a fair amount by anyone's opinion. But he was not off the deep end. He had too much riding on his sanity. He squinted around the room for a source that would explain the grown suited man lounging across his ceiling, and found nothing.

Yeah, he happened to live in a mansion in the creepy part of town. Yeah, he had dug up the remains of a centuries dead rake in search of buried treasure ...

But God help him he didn't deserve this prank. He reigned in the impulse to ring someone's neck for a more logical solution.

Well, I'm already down the rabbit hole. Might as well see how deep this bitch goes.

"I am Kirian Arthur and you are in my house".

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Arthur, but you are mistaken. That is my picture upon the wall." The specter lazily gestured toward the painting. "I have lived in this house for some fourty years and I lived on the the land for two hundred years after that."

"Tell that to my signed deed!"

"A ledger showing ownership? Well, I have one too." His voice was mocking, sarcastic even.