"You'll come back to me, Michael." The prince stumbled backwards, banged the back of his head into the wall. Colors shot forward to his eyes, blackness interspersed with red and purple and green in the vague shapes of mottled flowers. Once he could see again, her whiteness nearly blinded him.
    "You'll come back. We'll live together and be happy. You'll see." She leaned forward to kiss him, all white skin and red lips and gray eyes that more resembled the face of a clown than a gypsy-queen, stark, unreal.
    Then someone or something began to bang at the door. The painted lips disappeared, and she was nothing more than a frightened gray-eyed girl who hadn't seen the sun in far too long. The prince took her, held her tight, but the banging grew louder, until the door fell down. The monster charged, and the scene was nothing more than black slashed with red at the sound of a child's scream.

    Michael opened his eyes to the ringing of a phone, breathing hard, staring blearily into the frosted window next to his bed. His right arm was twisted under him, and his cheek was smashed into the corner of the pillowslip. The sky he'd woken up to was overcast, again, an unraining gray blanket over a multicolored clutch of cars and highway; past that, a few soggy trees drooped between his apartment complex and the interstate. He sighed, rolled onto his back, and attempted to move his arm, but it had fallen dead. Lifting it proved to be a painful and impossible feat. Michael wasn't too concerned, though. Whoever was calling would leave a message or call back.
    The dream was recurring, and by now he'd grown used enough to it not to think about it afterwards. The fairy girl's screams no longer echoed in his ears, her words no longer made him cry out in his sleep. This was a good thing, as he also no longer slept alone.
    Next to him, a small human-shaped lump of covers squirmed. Michael smiled, patted his child's head, and hummed the melody of a song he'd heard a long time ago. His neck ached, but he could ignore it while he stilled the small one. Morven was so perfect, a sweet seven-year-old terror who still smelled of baby shampoo. His soft dark skin was clean of any manner of harm. As Michael watched his son sleep, the world was serene, innocent, and genuinely beautiful. In the other room, the muffled voice of a gruff man had just finished giving directions.
    "So like I said, you get the case, my man. Drive this way as soon as you drop off your kiddo. This should be fun."

~*~

    Michael had gotten enough scars by the time he graduated high school that the one across his neck didn't seem like any big deal. His skin was so naturally dark that any hurt would show itself as long as he lived, but around junior year, the care of self-appearance had disappeared.
    It had started simply. One night, he was listening to a covertly-bought tape, something by angst-ridden grown men about the terrors of being a teenager with parents, and the lyrics seemed to taunt him. So he decided to get his subtle revenge, something his mother could do nothing about, something even she couldn't hide him from. He didn't even need any tools for this revenge, just nails and skin. The next morning, the inside of his left arm was red and puffy, lacerated but not bleeding. He was proud of the wound, and showed it off to classmates and quasi-friends. One of them told. His teachers were outraged that such a thing could have happened to such a quiet boy. The inefficient school councilors told him to pray and exercise more, then explained the situation to his mother, who was shocked and had a long, tearful I-love-you talk with him.
    Though the attention seemed to appease him for a short while, he realized that if he was to continue this revenge, he couldn't show it off. Another nail-scratch made a small scar on his left wrist. Then he used a white plastic knife, just above the inside of his left ankle. He actually stood the sting long enough to make that one actually bleed a little, and he was proud of it. There was truth to pain. No stories would be attached to this sort of wound, so it was a truth in secrecy. Everyone always reacted so violently to truth when they couldn't handle it. Well, he wouldn't make them have to handle anything. When he felt bad, he'd open up an old scar and heal himself. No one had to know.
    Later on, Michael realized that there was a truth, too, in sex. Somehow, despite his gaunt appearance, sex came easily to him. Girls flocked to him, at first because he could beat guys twice his size in a fight, later because he was "tall, dark, and handsome," and still later because he was quiet and trustworthy.
    But after sleeping with him, most girls ran away. They couldn't even tell their friends why, much less him. Physically, the experience had been enough. It was something about his eyes at the end that frightened them. Because of this, Michael couldn't keep many long-term girlfriends, and loneliness steadily washed over his perpetually angry face. Then he met one girl who he could not frighten away.
    Nimue was the captain of the ROTC at college, one grade level above him, a clever girl who had her sights set on a command position in the Marines. Her hard brown skin was contoured with more muscle than he had ever had. During their International Studies class, he stared at her from beneath his lashes. Nimue noticed, continued to notice, grew angry, and finally cornered him by the vending machines to ask him why. Her stern black eyes made him shiver, and the obvious undercurrent question made him flush. He very frankly told her that she was beautiful and that he had a crush on her. Her lower lip drooped, eyes widening a bare fraction. They went out the next weekend, made love three months later, and married just after she graduated. Nimue soon became pregnant with a baby boy named Morven, and did not join the Marines after all.
    After graduation, living together had been hard, a constant struggle to make ends meet. Once his mother died, however, Michael proved impossible to deal with. There was a renewed life in him that Nimue had never seen before. He cleaned the house and made money with which to take care of Morven by passing law school and defending semi-wealthy criminals. Morven grew pudgy and laughed often.
    Nimue grew to hate Michael for ruining her dreams with candlelight and sperm. She hated him even more because he worked hard enough to support their small family without needing her to work as well. She became unhappy, told him she couldn't take it anymore, and left. Simple, at least to her. Three years later, Michael was still taking good care of his son, and Morven was still crawling into his father's bed every time he had a bad dream.

~*~

    On the radio, a harpist was playing a mysterious tango. It made Michael think of women in fantasy movies, dancing in white mist, wreathed in flowers. The steady thunk of windshield wipers disrupted the beat. Morven quietly looked over a big book on snakes, giggling sometimes, also out of time with the music. The man in the pictures was holding each one by the head so that it couldn't bite, but nonetheless had dropped his jaw, eyes bulging in fear. After dropping his son off at elementary school (a private school, but not the one Michael had attended), he went to work.
    That morning, it was cold and wet. The wind brought with it a thin rain that pricked Michael's skin like shards of ice. Cowering under an umbrella, he hoped that his suit wouldn't take much damage.
    "It's gonna be rough up there, man," said Wayne, sniffling. In one hand he held a briefcase tight to his body, and under his arm kept a stack of manilla folders that looked about to fall to the wet ground. He had been the voice on the answering machine, but his voice was thicker and rougher than normal from standing outside in the rain with a cold. He pulled out a sagging handkerchief and wiped his nose, as discreetly as possible. The cloth made a scraping sound over his mustache. "Our Mr. Tolec was fucked up in the head. I don't remember, did I brief you when I called?"
    Michael shook his head and watched a few leaves swirl between the buildings before them, caught in a miniature whirlwind. One was a discount furniture outlet; the other, an adult video and retail store named "Royally Screwed."
    Wayne coughed and continued. "His daughter's a suspected accomplice to multiple first-degree murders. She called last night around three o'clock from the police station, left a message on Genger's machine. Apparently she lives with her father, and he didn't come home on time after closing. She went to their store to check on him, and there was blood all over the stairs. Called the police and got herself arrested for all that. This is some fucked up shit, man. Really fucked up. They brought her back here to explain her story to the 'authorities.'" He drew curling air quotes with his index and middle finger. "Not sure why they didn't just take her keys and do a search, leave the poor crazy kid at the station. Maybe she was staring people down."
    "Why are both of us here?" Michael asked, rubbing his eyebrow with a thumbnail. "Is it that big?"
    Wayne smirked. "Not really. Get this: This one was my case, but the chick doesn't like guys with beards. Said so when I tried to talk to her. Something of a nutcase like her old man, I figure. Why else would I have called you from home this morning? So go in the store and get a statement. I'm going home and putting myself to bed. Try not to break any hearts." He raised his eyebrows, and passed Michael the manilla folders. "See you at the office, cowboy."
    Michael grunted.

~*~

    Police tape surrounded the building's front and back doors, strips of yellow plastic fluttering then snapping hard and audible in the wind. This area of the city was essentially deserted, but likely only because the press hadn't yet caught wind of the case. A sudden gust made Michael clutch his umbrella hard with one hand. His gaze turned to a big-boned policeman outside, taking a report from a nervous white woman with a limp pink scarf tied around her neck. The thin rain swirled around his umbrella and pricked at his face as he approached the scene.
    "Miss Tolec?" asked Michael, disregarding the detective's sudden scowl.
    "No, Sir," she replied. "I just work here. She's over there." The woman pointed to a small hunched figure sitting in the doorway, behind the yellow tape, wearing something hooded and black. He hadn't noticed it before. It was smoking, dumping the ashes on its own boots, not seeming to care. Michael nodded to the woman in some semblance of thanks, turned, and walked to the figure, letting the yellow fluttering tape remain between them. If this girl was as young and unstable as Wayne had suggested, she'd probably want some distance even from her lawyer. And he'd probably want some distance from her, as well.
    "I'm not crazy," she said suddenly, making Michael jump. The voice that came from under the hood was soft but cold, devoid of inflection. "Sure, I had to live with someone who was crazy. But I'm not. I just couldn't keep him under control."
    Michael nodded slowly, then realized she was still staring down at the rain-darkened concrete. "Would you like to go inside? Someplace warmer? I mean... not inside the store, of course."
    Miss Tolec spat a mouthful of gray smoke into the wind, looked up so that her face was visible from the tip of the nose to her chin, and glanced over at the detective. He was still speaking to the woman with the scarf. The girl nodded, and ducked out from under the tape, heading towards the nearest parking lot. Water splashed over the front of her black leather boots at every step, washing them to a degree. After a moment of walking down the street, she pulled a stubby cigarette from between her painted red lips, dropped it to the ground, and smothered it with her toe. It was left dead in a puddle of muddy ash and limp paper.
    "I'm taking you down to a diner," she said. "I think. Any diner we run into first down this block. I think there might be a donut shop. The Pig back there won't know where we went. He's too busy flirting with Angel, tight-laced bitch. You're my lawyer, aren't they supposed to let me go after initial questioning unless they have sufficient evidence that I'll bust shit up?"
    "Well, yes, but--"
    "Well, you know, they didn't. I've been up all night, haven't gotten a wink of sleep in days, and now I've starting insulting my friend. And I've already made one hell of a first impression on you. And you're the one whose job it is to keep me out of jail. Great. Just great." She sighed loudly, stopped moving, held her arms tight to her chest. Her long black trenchcoat did not keep her thin frame from being visible. Michael knew from experience that such coats could be far from warm.
    He was hesitant to touch her, but stood where she could likely see him from beneath her hood, and pointed to his small white Echo. "Why don't we just go sit in my car? I can turn the heater on, drive around, stop wherever you'd like for breakfast. If you were really still supposed to be in jail, you'd be there or he'd be keeping a better watch on you. And I have the authority to bail you out if necessary. Seems to me like you just need to get away from all this."
    "Yeah... yeah. Sure. Not that I trust you, but... um. Never mind. Let's do that. Um. Thanks." They walked the rest of the way in silence and slid into the car, the clicks of unlocking doors welcoming them into a more hospitable environment than the earth could, at the moment, provide. Michael turned the key in the ignition, a soft click drowned out by what sounded like a laser gun firing, followed by the child's playtime noise of "vroom." The heater began to blow cold, stale air over their legs.
    "Do you mind if I smoke in here?" Miss Tolec held up a package of Marlboros to his face, attacking him with shiny red and white packaging.
    "Yes, actually. No offense." He didn't give his reasons, that the smell made him want to vomit, that he didn't want Morven to smell it on his clothes, in his hair, in the car. It would have contradicted his semi-apology. Michael did not want to offend this woman, not really. There was something grotesque about her, as if she'd been drawn as a characature instead of living and breathing next to him. That unreal grotesque quality invited offense.
    She wasn't all bad, though. As he shuffled through the papers Wayne had given him, most of which were fairly unnecessary, she began to hum, staring out the window. Just like when he'd initially approached her to speak, she began softly, without introduction.
    "Usually, when you remember something, you remember it in snapshots. Everyday life, you just think about arbitrary little things that happened to you. Pictures of the dog on the sidewalk. The bagel you ate this morning. The squirrel poking its head out of the trash can. Nothing spectacular, and it's all fuzzy and Technicolor when you try to actually think about what you saw." As she spoke, Michael was drawn into a slight trance. Her voice wasn't flat and cold, it was beautiful and warm, but had been dulled by shock and sorrow. He felt like he'd known her for years. But that wasn't possible. He shrugged the idea off without thinking about it.
    "Did you memorize that?" Michael inwardly flinched at the tone of his voice, but kept his eyes glued to the papers and photographs. Cases, records. Reality.
    "Just listen, okay?" She turned to him, her lower lip stuck between her teeth, and pulled the sewn-on hood back from her face. Michael would not look at her. He did not see the bruises purpling her right temple, the stitches over her left eyebrow that had never healed right.
    "Yeah, okay. I'm your lawyer, I'm here to listen. Don't worry about where I'm looking, I can multitask."
    "Okay." Her voice was a little wobbly, hesitant.
    Michael understood the hesitation. The flippant tone of his words would have made anyone hesitant to believe him. She kept speaking, however, as he leafed through her father's public life. Criminal record, the public business accounts of Royally Screwed. Her psychiatric evaluation: delusional, depressive, borderline, tendency to throw herself into abusive relationships, all layman's terms packed into words that Morven could not have pronounced. Michael knew the words, leftover tidbits of knowledge he'd gained in college psychology classes, knowledge which had been previously used only so that he could analyze himself.
    "Last night, Father didn't come home after closing the store. I take care of him, so of course I had to worry. He's... difficult to deal with. It's why I had to send your friend away. He looked too much like Father. Anyway, he was ten minutes late for dinner. Usually, even if he's bringing home one of the ladies of the night, he's on time and offers her something to eat before they dance upstairs." She paused. Michael was writing something down. "Are you even listening?"
    "He usually brings whores home for dinner, got it."
    Miss Tolec narrowed her eyes. "I wish you wouldn't treat my life like so much rubbish. You could at least be a gentleman and look at me when I'm speaking."
    Michael looked up at her, and stared for a moment at the hurts marring her otherwise clear white face. Pretty, but grotesque, and plainly proud of this disparity. She was like one of those dolls old women and little girls like to collect, with faces of porcelain and bodies of gray-brown rags, stuffed with cotton. The red lipstick only made it worse, painted her into an even stronger characature of a broken china doll. Wayne had been wrong about the age. Tolec was a woman, not remotely a girl. "I really am listening. And you can't use shock tactics on me, Miss Tolec. I really am sorry that so many terrible things happened to you, and I'll be sympathetic when either of us has the time. Right now, all I want are the facts, so I can keep you out of jail. No art, just tell me what happened last night. I won't interrupt."
    Miss Tolec folded her arms, and looked out of the passenger-side window. The rain had started to fall, now with vigor, in big healthy drops. "Fine. You want the facts, I'll give them to you. I went to the store check on him, and found him in the upstairs storage area, lying in a pool of his own blood in the middle of an inscribed pentagram, surrounded by a bunch of candles grabbed from the Sensual Lights crates, and the bodies of whores he'd been bringing home. The asshole didn't know jack shit about Satanic ritual, but he decided to try it anyway."
    "How do you know these things?"
    "I fucking lived with him." Her voice broke, and Michael stopped his writing. He had to continue questioning her, but she needed a break from the emotional wrack. Slowly, the lone white car pulled away from the deserted parking lot. Looking back at Royally Screwed, the detective and Angel were nowhere to be found. Michael just drove towards the nearest fast food restaurant, letting the woman beside him ride with her seatbelt unbuckled. So long as he didn't hold out his right arm to keep her from falling off the seat when they stopped short, he wouldn't embarrass himself too badly.
    "Satanic ritual. What do you know about it? What was he trying to do?"
    "Me? I know nothing about Satanism. The only Satanists I've ever spoken to are stupid asspricks. And it was obvious what he was trying to do. He was trying to resurrect my mom."
    "And you had nothing to do with it at all?" The roads were slippery, but deserted. They drove in the opposite direction of rush-hour traffic, going away from town and towards the suburbs where Michael lived.
    "Nothing. I couldn't have murdered anyone, much less Father's whores, and no one can find anything to prove I did. The only thing I don't have going for me is an alabi, because I was at home cooking dinner."
    "Let's hope the prosecutor doesn't decide to pull the murder card instead of just casting you as an accomplice. You've got the motive to stage all of this yourself, even your father's death." Without taking his eyes from the road, Michael pointed to his own temple, his own eyebrow.
    "Give me a break. I loved my father. He didn't do this to me. My ex-boyfriend did."
    "What about that scar on your neck?"
    "Oh, this thing? That was years ago. I got this thing when I was fifteen." Cynthia raised her hand to touch the old wound, and found it still covered by the material of her coat. She froze in her seat.
    "Relax. It should be an open-and-shut case, Cynthia. I'll make sure of that even if I have to bribe the judge. Now unless you have any objection, I'm taking you to my place and letting you rest. We'll pick up Morven and see how good you are at telling clean bedtime stories."