And here's my entry to Jade Macalla's contest.

It's a really short snippet featuring Jeremiah Greene, whose stories you can find in my gallery (and to a serial fiction site coming to a browser near you soon!).

You don't really need to have read any other Jeremiah Greene story to make sense of the characters.  If you're curious though, here's a quick rundown:

Jeremiah Greene - Century-old undead hitman and psychopomp.  Alcoholic, cynical, and often annoying.  Despite that, he's relatively competent, although a bit of an idiot at times.  He's immortal as his patron deity's powers prevent him from dying from anything short of Looney Toons-esque violence or being literally six-feet under.

William S. Black (Stacey) - The closest to a friend that Jeremiah has.  He's known the bartender for nearly a decade.  Although Stacey is a vanilla mortal, he's had his own introduction to the spooky side of things through Jeremiah.

Rena - Jeremiah's ward.  12-year old girl, but heir to a prestigious spot in a supernatural pantheon in Poland.  She's in exile, but is under Jeremiah's protection.  Respects him, likes him, and looks up to him as a father/brother figure.  Doesn't stop her from being infuriated enough to want to shoot him though.