After being dosed with fresh, cold water several times, the man finally woke up.

“What, who are you?”

“Who am I? I am your worst—”

“Frank!” I shot. He eased over to my side of the room, where I stood with a scuttle. “We talked about this, yes?”

“Aye. And it’s alright, doll. You can call me Frankie.”

“That’s not—you mind telling me what you think you’re doing?”

“Good cop, bad cop. Never heard of it?”

“That’s not—I thought we discussed that I will handle the…”

“Interrogation?”

“Questioning.”

“Ha-hah-ha, look, doll, but umm, *sniffle,* I got this. So sit back, relax, kick your feet up, or whatever. Let ol’ Uncle Frankie handle this.”

There were so many problems with what he just said. Firstly, I wasn’t going to call him that. Quickly moving onto the second point of business, we had already talked about his need to torture this guy. He spoke of methods such as pistol-whipping, which I don’t think is considered torture to begin with, to the extremes such as waterboarding, plucking his nails, and hanging him upside down with a few precise cuts to get the answers we were looking for. I didn’t condone any of them, and this wasn’t my first rodeo.

If it’s anything like what I had to deal with when questioning the previous individuals tied to this case, getting answers would be tough regardless.

“Please, just let me handle this.”

“You sure about that?” Frank questioned. “If what you said was true, then he works for a witch. For all we know what he sees and hears, so does the witch.”

“Where are you even pulling this stuff out of your ass. Do you hear yourself? I have already resigned to believing you about the hex stuff. But this—you’re making it very difficult for me to believe you have any credibility to begin with.”

“So what do you want to do then? Just ask em? Hey mate, you work for a witch?”

“What—no! Witch?! Are you one of those weird old folks who likes fairytales and folklore? If so, just let me go. If I don’t return with the girl by the night’s end, my employment is up.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“As I said, my employment will be terminated, and I would rather that not be the case. I actually like it. It’s a pretty sweet gig. The benefits, the pay, and the free drinks.”

“So, no witch?” Frank questioned curiously, half disappointed and half relieved.

“You are old! No witch. For Fu—can you let me out of these now? It’s really tough on my wrists. Look, I am on the clock, and I really must get back with the girl.”

“Why?” I inquired. “For you to be this eager and to resort to violence so quickly. It’s a bit odd for me to understand.”

“Does no one’s ears work? Because I am on the clock. I don’t want to lose my job. Not like the last guy. Real timid fellow. Scarecrow took care of him himself. Now, that guy is scary. You don’t ever want him angry at ya. So, please give me the girl, and I will be out of your hair. You want me to apologize for attacking, whatever, sorry. Just let me go. Honestly, I don’t care that you killed Theo. A right dickhead anyways…”

Frank and I stepped back, reconvening a bit a few paces away from our loose-lip friend.

“You think he’s drunk?”

“No,” I answered. “Is that how you act when you drink too much?”

“Well, he ain’t making much sense. What if he is high?”

“Are you? Do you hear yourself?”

“Look, I get partners don’t get along all the time…” Shot the tied-up one in the corner. “Me and my mates argue all the time.”

“We aren’t partners.”

“That’s right, I am an investigator,” Frank added.

“And I am a private detective.”

“Isn’t that the same thing? Oh wait, are you two secret partners?”

““We are not partners!””

Now that we cleared the air, we focused on getting answers.

“What happened to Hummings?” I questioned.

“Who?”

“The man who was in here? Did you and your dead buddy not clean up the mess in this room to hide evidence and wait for us—for me? To show back up?”

“You sound like a crazy person. I told you already—my goodness, you people really don’t listen. I came here to ask you the questions. Where is the girl?”

“Strange one you are. Can’t you see that you’re in no position to be asking anyone anything,” Frankie answered, planting the tip of his revolver on our suspect’s forehead. “Why do you care so much about this girl? Do you like her or something? She cute?”

“No—I mean, she is. Amazing body. But that’s not important. It’s about what’s on the inside. She is a favored one, after all.

“What do you mean by that—a favored one?” I cut in.

“For goodness—fine, fine. If it will help speed things along, I will tell you. Certain folks along Smitten Kittens are favored, and it’s as simple as that. Don’t know what it means exactly outside them getting some exclusive treatment. That’s why they are called that. Some are allowed to leave the Row for special jobs, while others tend to be go-to managers, I suppose. They handle writing off our checks, organizing who takes to being on the street to draw in customers, and so forth. We say nothing else as they are bosses.”

“She’s a boss? Your boss?”

“Not my boss; she definitely handles everything, though within her rights, of course.”

“So, your boss?” Frank asked again to reconfirm.

“Not my boss.”

We were going to find out whether that was true or not in due time. He knew what he knew, and that was about it. But I had a lot of questions, and given that he seems to be able to speak to a certain degree about them, he might lead us to someone with all the answers.

“He’s coming with us.”

““Where?!””

The two men shot perplexed. 

“To Smitten Kittens, of course.”

Frank looked uneasy, with a brow raised. I don’t blame him, all things considered. If I were him, I would look at myself as crazy, too. First, there was no body, now no Smitten Kittens. The entire alley, or street, or to behest not sure to call it that appeared out of nowhere and contradicted the very layout of the roads already in the city was gone. 

“You sure this is the place?” Frank asked. 

“Yes, it was right past Essex. I am sure of it!”

“What are you on about?” Questioned dubiously the one in the back. “It was definitely off of 8th Carnival Ave.

“What? No, no, I am certain it was Essex.”

“Yeah, and I work there. So who are you going to believe, driver?”

Frank eyed me skeptically. 

“It could be a trap, so I think I will take the word of the vamp here.”

“Are you serious?! Whatever…”

We sat in silence for a moment. As I tapped my finger against the door, Frankie shot me a glance, this time tinged with annoyance.

“Sorry…”

“So what now, then?” Frank asked. He looked to be grouchy as he finished the last of whatever he was drinking from his flask.

“I am not sure…I don’t think our friend in the back knows much. He has one job, to be a dog and sniff what they tell him to.”

Frank looked in the mirror before shooting me some skeptical side-eye.

“Know some boys who are good at getting folks to talk. It’s getting late, so I suppose we can take our new friend back to the department. How about that?”

I wasn’t someone wearing a badge. I was a private detective whose job was to uncover the truth. How I reached that wasn’t my concern, as long as I arrived at it in the end.

“Whatever…”

As he started his car and eased off the break to let the car roll, a sudden force came barreling into the side. We were hitby another vehicle. The force flipping us into a roll and tossing us around inside. 

Pain flared and shot up through my shoulders as a piece of shrapnel lodged itself deep. My side had taken the brunt of the impact, and as the sensation slowly returned, I realized my vision was inverted. The seatbelt held me suspended, with Frank sprawled beside me on the roof, his strained breathing gradually drowned out by the crunch of footsteps in the snow. Glancing around, I saw an entity circling us, like a shark scenting blood. Its bare feet were a sickly, pale blue, veins darkened with an unsettling greenish hue.

The sight, for some reason, left me on edge.

Frank, barely conscious, turned to me, his hand inching up to press a finger to his lips, urging silence. But our backseat companion missed the cue, groaning as he dragged himself toward the opposite side and out of the car. His blood left a stark trail in the snow—until he suddenly froze, faced with the toes just inches from him.

“Hey, scarecrow… Sorry, I am late—wait, wait, wait! I told them nothing. I swear I didn’t say a word—”

The guy whose name I never caught was plucked up. His words were cut short before a crunching sound could be heard. Blood poured down just below his heels. Frank slowly lifted a free piece of broken mirror to angle it just right for us to see.

We didn’t have time to gawk and looked around. Between the sounds of chewing, I could hear some leaking. Given its smell, I was betting it was gasoline.

“Frank…” I whispered. “We have to get out of here.”

“Not yet…, not with that thing out there.”

He was trembling with fear. He was willing to bet staying in his car instead of facing whatever was outside. 

“Sorry, Frankie.”

With the best I could, I slugged him in the jaw with just enough force to knock him out. Not eager to be in the hospital twice in the same week, I wrenched myself free from the seatbelt and reached for Frank. 

The fellow needed to lay off the donuts—his stomach being the hardest thing to pry free. With a few graceful tugs, I dragged him as fast as I could to the other side of the street. We were safe and out of harm’s way when the car ignited into a sea of flames.

Propping him up, I could see his head bleeding. The sight of the crimson liquid leaking left my hand trembling.

Focus. Focus. Control yourself.

Gathering myself just barely, I noticed in the reflection of the storefront between the tips of the flames something standing there menacingly looking at us. It didn’t move; it just stood there as if waiting.

Two small white spheres, that’s all that peered back from a face that looked like a dark endless pit that sucked you in. Several hands reached out of around. Every part of my skin crawled. Whatever I was looking at had me petrified. It wasn’t human, far from it. It continued to stare long and hard at me as if goading me into making a move. Seeing as I did not interest it, it continued to devour the meal in its grasp. Its lengthy body stood there, towering over the torrent of raging flames.

“Me car…” Frank mumbled, his conscience coming and going. “Not me car…”

“Shut up, Frank.” I hushed him, placing my hand over his mouth. His concern was clearly elsewhere in his dreams, and I get why. His subconscious was trying to protect his mind from the horrifying creature we had both just seen. How lucky for him. 

As it stood there, its gaze kept looking at me. I lowered my gaze, keeping track of it just from the corner of my eye as it slowly retreated into the recess of the dark corners without any other sound but a mixture of a low hum, growl, and a series of clicks. When the feeling of being in something else’s presence finally faded, I managed to let out a sigh of relief. My skin was riddled with goosebumps for the first time with a sensation of not being my own. 

I didn’t think it was possible, but Frank did mention that shadows harbor secrets that have yet to be exposed. I was skeptical at first, as I had never heard anything or even seen something like that before, but call me a believer now. Whatever that thing was, it was a monster’s monster—something straight out of a nightmare.