Walking The Razor: A Montague & Strong Detective Novel

“You met Kali…the Kali? Did you tell him about me?”
She reminded me of myself, when I’d first met Monty and found myself thrust into a world beyond anything I could imagine. Shocking doesn’t begin to describe it.
“Didn’t need to,” I said. “As far as I know, he pretty much knows everything I’m about to say.”
“I’m not omniscient, Simon,” Ezra said. “Just well informed.”
Peaches gave off a small whine from under the table, and Ezra held up a finger before I answered. He waved a hand, forming a large titanium bowl inscribed with a large letter P on the side. It was filled with pastrami—too much in my opinion, even for Peaches.
“You don’t think that’s a little much?” I said, looking at the overflowing pastrami. “Even for a bottomless hellhound? He’s going to get immense.”
“Anton briefed me on your plan to put a growing hellhound on a diet,” Ezra said, scolding me as he shook his head. “All the pastrami in this place is healthy pastrami. I added an extra portion because he needs it. If you starve him, he will become irritable; that’s never good when it comes to hellhounds. Especially the puppies.”
My vibrating hellhound fixated on the bowl, before gracing me with his puppy-dog eyes. I nodded and he proceeded to inhale the contents of the bowl with a velocity that hurt my brain to watch. I wondered where all the meat went. When he was done, he turned in a circle several times and plopped down under the table with a satisfied chuff. The snoring started a few seconds later.
“Starve him?” I said, glancing under the table. “He can barely fit in the Dark Goat.”
“He’s a puppy?” Jessikah asked. “I would hate to see what he’s like when he’s fully grown.”
“They can be a handful,” Ezra said, waving our words away and adjusting his glasses, “but we aren’t here to discuss hellhound care. You’re here because you want to know about Tristan facing his yetzer hara.”
“His yetzer what?” I asked, confused. “If that means going all Darth Monty…then yes, his yetzer thing.”
“His shadow self,” Ezra translated. “You want to know what you can do, now that he is embracing his darkness.”

SIX
“Is that what it’s called?” I asked. “Embracing your darkness? Are you saying he’s not fully dark yet? More importantly, can I get him to break this embrace? He’s making a large amount of people twitchy…powerful people, who would prefer to see him dead rather than dark.”
“If anyone can do it,” Ezra said, “it would be you—his shieldbearer. Do you know how?”
“I don’t even know where he is,” I answered, frustrated. “How would I know how to get him back?”
“He has to want to come back,” Ezra said. “The allure of darkness…is powerful.”
“I know he may be close, but he isn’t dark completely. Not yet.”
“Tristan Montague has gone dark,” Jessikah said, firmly. “The elders of my sect sent me here to stop him.”
“The elders of your sect sent you here to perish,” Ezra said gently. “Surely you understand that by now?”
“She’s getting it…slowly,” I said, giving Jessikah a hard look. “What is a yetzer hara?”
One of the servers—not Anton—arrived with a large tray of food. The smell overpowered my senses, suddenly making me ravenous. For a second, I thought I was going to pull a Peaches and drool all over the table.
The server placed an enormous pastrami sandwich before me with deft expertise. The sandwich, which was at least two pounds of pastrami, with the illusion of some slices of bread, defied the laws of physics. It teetered on the brink of collapse, only held in place by large toothpicks. Jessikah’s salad threatened to spill out of her plate and looked delicious. The meal was capped off with two industrial-sized egg creams.
Jessikah looked down at her plate and slowly shook her head.
“There is no way I could…” she started, stopping when I gave her a look.
“Thank you, Ezra,” I said, barely managing to get my hands around half of the sandwich. “This looks and smells delicious.”
“Thank you,” Jessikah said, picking up her fork, still unsure where to begin. “This looks absolutely excellent.”
“Good, good,” Ezra said. “You two eat, and I’ll explain.”
I took a large bite of the sandwich, barely diminishing its size. My taste buds did a happy dance as I chewed. Ezra’s was the best. I could totally understand why Peaches loved this place.
Jessikah took a few tentative forkfuls before joining me in appreciation for the food, with a small groan of her own.
“This is so good,” she said after a few more forkfuls. “I’ve never had anything this good.”
Ezra nodded, evidently satisfied that we were enjoying the food.
“Is there a way I can stop Monty from falling deeper into this yetzer thing?”
“The yetzer hara, or shadow self, isn’t something he’s falling into,” Ezra said. “It’s still Tristan. Everyone possesses a shadow self…everyone.”
“Even you?” I asked. “I mean, how could you possess one?”
“Let me correct,” Ezra said with a small smile. “Everyone who is mostly human possesses a shadow self.”
“Are you saying I can’t stop him from going dark?”
“Why do you want to?” Ezra asked. “What does it mean to go dark?”
It was still too early to be hit by Zilleresque questions. My brain hadn’t been fully caffeinated, but I knew those two questions were important.
“He will become evil,” Jessikah said, with a certainty rooted in myopic conditioning. It was her Black Orchid training talking. “Any mage that goes dark eventually surrenders to evil and needs to be neutralized…before it’s too late.”
“I expect that answer from the Black Orchid,” Ezra said, then turned to me. “What say you, Simon?”
I gave it some thought. Monty and I had come across plenty of powerful, dark beings; some of them were mages, some of them were more than human. Not all of them were evil. Dangerous and scary as hell, yes, but not inherently evil.
“Darkness doesn’t equal evil any more than light equals good.”
“It has been my experience that at some point in every life, a radical choice is