"I'm not surprised - his books aren't your usual fare." He gives her a little smile. They weren't really his, either; if he hadn't had to pore over Stormbringer in order to understand what was happening, he probably would have skipped over it at the bookstore. He apparently had been, for close to fifteen years. "He wrote about an albino elf named Elric, who existed to balance law and chaos. He was the Eternal Champion."

If the cards were still out, he'd be prodding them. "He had a sword called Stormbringer - typical stuff. The Major must have had fifty copies of one book stored in his house; he gave me one nearly every time I came over. I used to give them back to Gimble at school the next day, so he could take them back to the stash. But the Major wasn't the only one obsessed with these books. Earl Roy, the murderer - he was trying to appease the Eternal Champion, because every death gave him strength. Something like that. It was heady stuff for a senior in high school."