The look that met his fixed squarely in the ‘not friendly’ territory. Most men were polite enough to hide their immediate dislike, but this one wore it like an overcoat. It was as though he were a ball of fire, ample to set whatever he could land on aflame for the sheer gall of being in his path.

This Alexander Mason wanted Aslan’s fear – and Aslan had no plans to offer it unearned.

“You brought me here and you’re afraid of bodies?” he returned, placid as a starless night.

Somehow, he had the growing suspicion that this was not about someone’s death. Or, well, at least not a loved one’s death.

Aslan squeezed his hand, brief but hard with a grip that could bend steel if it so willed, and then loosened it. However, he remained clutching Alexander’s hand. Was this the closest this quaint fellow had been to another human being outside of a prostitute? When (and only when) Alexander attempted to withdraw his own hand, Aslan released it with that same serene look. He fixed a seemingly piteous glance down on Alexander’s hand, and then on Alexander himself.

Allah Allah. Next time he’d come with naked hands just to see if he regarded them as hot irons. The glove felt clean, but there was a hint of amusement threatening Aslan’s facade. He remained in Alexander’s personal space.

His tailored suit was, in fact, too tight to let Jesus in. No sign of a cross on Aslan’s person.

When Alexander announced his intentions, however – something changed. A young man with a sister gravely wronged. Was he the same age that Aslan had been when Nisa was being--…

Aslan shut his mind from those thoughts, clasped his hands before himself, and finally stepped back to return their personal spaces.

“Go on.”