Three a.m. and Dagwood was standing on the corner of Blueberry and Graham, a location he had learned was affectionately referred to as the Dessert Stop by those in the know. He had been told this by one of his homeless informants, who seemed to think the nickname was downright brilliant. To appease her, he had said as much.

Though summer was still just at the beginning of its downward spiral into fall, the night had oppressed the temperature, forcing it down to an acceptably chilly level. Dagwood turned his head to feel the wind on his face, stroking his hair back away from his face like the tender touch of a lover. Sighing, he glanced at his watch again. 3:02.

In nine minutes, the sewer grate in the middle of the street would shift, displaced slightly by someone pushing at it from beneath. For half an hour only, this grate would be left askew for anyone to come along and enter. Then, it would be sealed again until the same time tomorrow night.

The fighting ring was down there. The Pit. Dagwood didn’t know exactly where it was or what to expect from this specific one, but he did know that there were at least a few others out here waiting for the exact same thing as him. He could see them when they shifted, breaking the illusion that they were shadows, or when the wind caught at their clothes and set it to stirring. He could smell them, all of them men, and he could taste their anticipation, their fear-sweat. One of them was high as a kite, reeking of sweet marijuana and crisp dollar bills.

How a person exited the sewer when they’d had enough of the ring, Dagwood hadn’t been able to find out. The informant didn’t know. He expected that it wouldn’t be particularly hard to find, if drunkards and battle-exhausted patrons could get out. Portsmouth didn’t have an epidemic of missing people, so that was always a good sign.

The hours in his brand-new, fancy hotel room had passed by very quickly, but now these seconds seemed to be taking an eternity to disappear. The urge to shift, to let his impatience be expressed, was more than a little overwhelming, but he calmed himself with breathing exercises. A person who was in control of his own body could do anything he desired, and he could also not do anything if he wished it to be so. In fact, that was yet another strict teaching that had been pounded into his head throughout all those karate lessons: sometimes it was best to do nothing at all.

Around midnight, as he’d been lying in his new bed, there came a knock on the door. He went to open it, flipping on the light as he went. He knew exactly what he would see, who he would see, and he hadn’t been wrong because Officer Janis was standing there with a dark look on her face.

“Fancy meeting you here, Officer,” Dagwood said. He tried not to sound as tired as he felt, since most of his exhaustion was on the inside. “Something I can help you with?”

“Congratulations,” she said, pushing her lips together into a tight line. “Your case just got bumped up on our list of priorities.”

He tilted his head, not understanding, until she held out a small, labeled plastic bag for him to take. The label on the front blocked out most of the contents, but he could see that it was a sheet of torn notebook paper. Judging from the pattern on the side, it had come from one of his own notebooks.

“Some kind of note,” he said.

“Turn it over.”

He turned it over and found himself looking at jagged block letters, printed as if in a hurry.

The note hadn’t been signed, predictably. There was nothing else to look at, to make the bland threat more remarkable, and yet Dagwood felt a chill run down his spine.

“I don’t think I need to take you in for questioning,” Officer Janis said, “because your part of the story checks out. I’ve already established that you were at every location you gave to us. We also spoke with your…boss.”

“And how did that go?”

“He seemed adamant that you get out there and work twice as hard, since you’re clearly on the right track.”

“And what’s your advice, Officer?”

“Drop it,” she said flatly. “You’re being threatened. You’ve become a wild card in this case, and even though we have no authority to do it, I’m of half a mind to arrest you and stick you in the holding cell until this all blows over. You’re only going to cause trouble for yourself and trouble for us. Call this whole thing off. Take the loss. Lay low for a bit. Consider a career change. Maybe become a PI and investigate cheating husbands. Leave matters of real security to the people who know what they’re doing.”

He looked at her and he saw exactly what he had been telling Irwin about. She was in her mid-twenties, or perhaps her late-twenties. She was the product of his generation, a hard-worker born into a life of strict regulations and requirements. In her eyes, his lack of paperwork made him obsolete.

“Good night, Officer,” he had said.

She left without another word, taking her evidence with her.

Dagwood snapped out of his memories as a god-awful squealing sound seemed to burst up from the street itself, resonating back and forth between the walls of buildings on either side. The orange neon glow of streetlights caught the shifting of the sewer grate as it was pushed up from beneath, the squealing caused by metal on concrete. The sound abruptly cut out and silence reigned once more.

Dagwood waited.

The other men emerged from the shadows one at a time, trickling into view. They shuffled towards the sewer grate, some of them looking around to see if they might be spotted. Others moved with the casual, natural steps of people who had done this several times before. They would reach the grate, lift it up with varying degrees of difficulty, and descend the ladder. Pausing most of the way inside, they would pull the grate back over the hole into approximately the same place it had been before they disturbed it.

This process occurred again and again until Dagwood neither saw nor heard anyone else. Only then did he make his move.

Just as he reached the grate, a hand shot up out of the darkness and pulled it back flush into its setting.

“You’re too late,” a voice hissed.

He peered down into the darkness beneath the grate but the streetlight was behind him, casting the speaker in shadow. Not even his predator eyes could penetrate such shadows. “I’m standing right here,” Dagwood said. “Surely there’s room for one more down here.”

“No,” the speaker hissed. “Come back tomorrow and come sooner.”

If the situation wasn’t what it was, he might have amiably agreed and gone away. Unfortunately for this person, he was in a bit of a bad mood, and the whole world seemed to have turned against him. He wasn’t about to walk away.

Reaching down, he wrapped his fist around one grate bar and pulled up as hard as he could. Though it was heavy, his anger felt little resistance, and he was left holding the grate covering in one hand while staring down into the shadowy face of the person beneath him. “I’m coming in,” Dagwood said, as calmly as possible. “Or you are going to find yourself beaten over the head with this. I imagine it will hurt quite a lot.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the person stepped down off the ladder, moving away into the darkness. “Sure, whatever. You got here on time as far as I’m concerned, buddy.”

Dagwood descended, pulling the grate covering firmly into place as he went. At that point, though there were still several ladder rungs beneath him, he let go and dropped down. The knife that had been coming straight for his gut ended up slicing only empty air.

Twisting around, Dagwood grabbed for his assailant’s arm and caught it, bending it back at a painful angle. The man let out a soft grunt of pain between clenched teeth. “Bitch,” he hissed.

“I’m not sure you’re in any position to be insulting me,” Dagwood said. Twisting harder, he earned another grunt of pain, slightly louder than the first. Light from above, and light from somewhere off down the length of the tunnel, revealed to him exactly what he was dealing with. The truth was, it wasn’t much. The man didn’t look to be much older than Irwin and was even scrawnier, which he had attempted to make up for with an extra-large knife. That had worked against him, as large knives tended to be unwieldy.

Dagwood squeezed the man’s wrist and was rewarded as he dropped the weapon with a gasp. The heavy clattering sound drew the attention of a few others who were standing off a ways down the tunnel, though they soon decided that whatever was going on wasn’t worth their attention.

“In fact,” Dagwood continued, “you got picked for doorman duty because someone wanted to watch you get crushed. Are you interested in making their fantasy come true?”

Silence. Then, sullenly, the man said, “No.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Still holding onto the man’s arm, keeping it twisted around painfully behind his back so that any movement caused pain, Dagwood stretched out his foot to retrieve the fallen knife. Snapping the blade shut by pushing it against the wall, he then bent to pick it up and put it in his own pocket. “I think I’ll be keeping this. You don’t mind, I’m sure.”

Another sullen, “No.”

“Good. So, now that we understand each other, I think I’ll let you go.”

He released the other man without much fanfare, watching as he rubbed his wrist. Satisfied that no further threats were going to come his way—at least for the time being—Dagwood turned and started off down the tunnel in the direction of the mysterious light.

Passing by those people who had been watching his scuffle with the doorman, he was very aware of their fierce eyes burning into him, sizing him up. They said nothing to him. They didn’t need to. Their attention said it all.

Further down the tunnel the path branched into three. He just continued on straight ahead, following the light. Sounds came to him, distant but present, and he thought that the faint, echoing quality might simply be a result of the location. Someone was yelling, and a great deal of other people were yelling in response, their voices melding into an indistinct cacophony. A bell chimed and some of the voices died out while others grew in intensity. Something thumped heavily against concrete.

Dagwood knew he was hearing the fight ring, already in full swing. He could almost imagine that he was in a legitimate wrestling hall, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was also hearing a great deal of background noise that no reputable establishment would have. Rat claws skittered in the distance, scraping over textured stone. Water and slime dripped, unceasing, unending, from the ceiling, the walls, from every available surface. Something rumbled overhead. A passing car.

The tunnel ahead of him suddenly twisted and he found himself in a very large, open room which looked as if it had once held some sort of machinery, pumps, valves, or something else. He couldn’t tell because the room was now filled with a shifting mass of people pressing against the ropes of a makeshift ring, in which two people were furiously brawling without any finesse or strategy. They rolled across the ground in a tangle of flesh, kicking and clawing at each other’s faces, fists flying, teeth gnashing. The crowd was going crazy, urging them on. At least, most of them were. A few watchers here and there were silent, immobile.

Dagwood supposed those people were either used to the chaos, or the people who had bet the most and therefore had the most to lose.

He stayed on the outside of the brightly-lit room, skirting around the edges while making his way over to a corner to observe. The lighting seemed to be photography equipment, or at least that was the best guess he could give after summoning memories of grade-school picture day.

Finding a perch, he watched the rest of the fight from a distance between the heads of the people in the crowd. Someone lost. Someone won. It was impossible to tell who was who, because both of the men who staggered from the ring were covered in blood and bruises.

Money exchanged hands to the tune of irritable groans and delighted cooing. And suddenly, there she was.

She moved with easy grace through the crowd, flirting with her body, caressing with her eyes, yet never actually touching anyone. She seemed to flow, serpentine, gathering up money as she went. Her mouth moved, teeth flashing in the harsh lights.

Dagwood saw fangs and stiffened. A wordless snarl formed on his lips as he looked at her, the woman with dangerous purple eyes.

She turned her head and looked right at him. Those eyes narrowed to mere slits. I see you, that gaze said.

He didn’t look away.

Some form of understanding seemed to dawn on her, and she moved back into the crowd, doing whatever it was that she was tasked with. Soon enough, two more people stepped into the ring. Someone announced that knives were allowed this time, and the fight began.

As soon as the first spray of blood misted up into the air, the woman appeared at Dagwood’s side. She didn’t touch him, but her body near his was somehow unwelcomingly intimate. With a tilt of her head, she gestured for him to follow her.

One of the fighting men shrieked with pain, and Dagwood heard a thick stream of blood splatter onto the floor. His stomach turned even though he wasn’t normally squeamish; senseless violence just didn’t sit well with him.

The woman led him around to the other side of the room and through another hallway, then down a series of dizzying, short twists and turns before finally stopping in front of a doorway. She didn’t open the door but instead whipped around to face him. Her mouth parted, her fangs flashed again in the dull light, and Dagwood took a step back.

“Viper,” he said. Her fangs were long enough to jut out of her mouth like tusks, curling out over her full lower lip.

“Wolf,” she returned. Her voice was like being touched in a place where he didn’t want to be, and he had to resist the urge to take another step back. “You were staring. Why? You’ve never come around here before. I don’t recognize you, and I have a very good memory.”

“I’m here on business. I was wondering if you could help me.”

He didn’t like the looks of this snake, but he had little choice in the matter. All at once, he was very thankful for the knife he’d taken from the doorman. It might be useful, if push came to shove.

“I don’t know if you can tell, but this isn’t exactly a place for business. It’s all about pleasure down here.”

“Right.” He wasn’t impressed. The seductress act wasn’t going to work on him.

The viper woman seemed to realize this about the same time as he was getting tired of her bullshit. “You’re gay, aren’t you?”

This surprised a laugh out of him. She also smiled, but her amusement was tinged with scorn. “Either that, or you have someone in your heart who you love, so that my lust can’t work on you.”

Dagwood took a closer look at her as she spoke. Her eyes were indeed purple, though he could tell that she was only wearing red contacts over blue eyes. She also had scars on her mouth, though he hadn’t exactly envisioned…this. Lines had been drawn from the corner of her mouth with surgical precision, and then her flesh had been cut away and tucked up underneath so that her mouth was twice as wide as it once was. When she spoke, he could see her molars and her tongue, which had been split at the tip to resemble a snake’s tongue.

“How do you walk around in the human world like this?” he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. The movement was almost a dance, it was so graceful. “Maybe I don’t.”

Which, he supposed, was fair enough. Shifters living underground, free of the humans and their oppressive rules, wasn’t exactly a rare thing in this day and age.

He should have been getting down to business, but curiosity had the best of him. “You spoke of lust like it was an actual power.”

“Isn’t it? Or are you so pure that you don’t believe? Have you never been horny, Mr. Wolf?”

Something clicked for him. “You’ve spent time with vampires.”

She smiled slyly, confirming his suspicions. He didn’t know why he hadn’t figured it out sooner, what with the way her eyes were so glazed and yet depthless. Vampires and shifters weren’t the best of friends, but they weren’t sworn enemies and did tend to mingle on occasion. This viper, this snake of a woman, had spent time with a vampire if she had an understanding of how to use lust to hypnotize a person, as a night-dweller would.

Suddenly, the woman tilted her head, canting one ear in the direction they’d come from. “Time is running out, Mr. Wolf. My patience is running out. What do you want from me?”

“I’m looking for someone. A man by the name of Kevin Leery. I’m told you spoke with him recently. Brown eyes, brown hair, curly beard?”

“Mr. Wolf, you have just described half of the people in this city.”

“I’m sure you’d remember him because he’s one of the most wanted people in America, right now.”

Actually, he wasn’t very sure about that because if she spent all her time underground, she would know nothing of the affairs of humans. Yet, if she never went above, how had she been seen talking to Kevin?

Either the viper recognized that she had been caught or else she was playing some game that he couldn’t fathom, because she snapped her fingers—as if in dramatic realization—and nodded. “Ah, that Kevin Leery. The cutie with the eyes like mud and the brains to match?”

“That’s the one. You spoke with him. What about? Did he tell you where he was going?”

“Ah-ah-ah.” The viper wiggled her finger teasingly. “You don’t get information that easily. What are you? A detective?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, Mr. Wolf Detective, if you want to know so badly, I’m afraid you’re going to have to fight for that right.”

Dagwood stared at her, comprehending what she had said but not quite able to mesh it with her physical appearance. She wanted to fight him? “In what form?” he asked.

“Human, of course. Let’s up the risk, shall we? You can either win or lose in front of that crowd. Will you bring shame to your name or will you prove that you’re as rough as everyone thinks you are?” She smiled, tilting her head.

This viper woman moved like a dancer, and she did have a certain serpentine grace about her, but he doubted she would be a match for him because of his extensive training. If she lost in public, she couldn’t deny it like she might in private, leaving him with nothing but guilt for having hurt a woman.

“Fine,” he said, grudgingly.

“Very good! Now, I hear the last fight winding down. If we move quickly, we can butt our way in. Do try to keep up.”

She flitted away, light on her feet, retracing her steps. Dagwood followed, having no difficulty at all in keeping pace with her. In his mind, this was a fight already won.

The viper woman disappeared into the crowd just as the last fight ended. One of the combatants was bleeding profusely from many shallow knife wounds, while the other clutched at a few pouring punctures that had landed in strategic spots. Both seemed worse for wear; judging from the position of the wounds, they were going to have a difficult time either covering them up or explaining to their coworkers and loved ones what happened.

Money exchanged hands, with the woman seeming to easily remember who had bet what.

She must have a fantastic mind, Dagwood mused.

The bustle of the crowd died down for a moment, and a few people wandered away, while others took their place. Someone stepped towards the ring, but the woman was there in an instant, placing a hand on his arm. Her mouth moved and so did her body as she made sweet, tempting sounds in his ear; the man wandered away again, looking dazed and confused but not entirely unhappy.

Dagwood moved closer as the viper gestured to him. She spoke to the crowd, fangs flashing with every syllable. “Those of you here tonight who are regulars will know that I, your beloved ringmaster, do not usually get involved in these wonderful displays of passion.”

The crowd stirred, growing excited. Clearly whatever was about to happen was considered very important by most of those in attendance.

“However, I have a challenger, and he wishes to hold me to my word. We will fight here, for your enjoyment! What a rare, special treat I am offering all of you!”

Dagwood could have gagged at the way all these men were practically falling all over themselves in an effort to be noticed by her, trying to outdo the others with louder and louder praise. The woman soaked in the attention, seeming to literally become bloated with it as if she was some sort of perverse mosquito. He was reminded of her vampiric, hypnotic ways, and felt some of his confidence waning. She might well have other talents of which he was unaware that would turn the tide in her favor.

“The rules are simple, as they always are down here! Anything goes.” She cut her eyes across to Dagwood. Her gaze said, anything but shifting, as if he needed a reminder to play fair. “Whoever submits first will, of course, lose. And as this is a special treat, you may work out your bets amongst yourselves.”

The crowd of men exploded into activity. Teeming all over themselves like ants, they were practically throwing their money around, and judging from their shouts, not a lot of that money was being placed on Dagwood. They expected him to fail. His confidence waned a little more, and now he was warier than ever about this fight he had jumped into without thinking.

The activity hadn’t even begun to die down when the viper slid into the ring, working her way nimbly through the ropes. Dagwood followed, lifting one up over his head to make room for his larger body to pass. The tension in the rope startled him. The set-up here might be ramshackle and makeshift, but it wasn’t half-assed in the slightest.

He stood in the ring, which was about ten feet by ten feet, looking over at the viper. She seemed much too relaxed.

“Begin,” she said.

Someone rang a bell in response, and the fight began. At least, it technically began. Neither of them moved, sizing up the other, waiting for their opening.

Dagwood’s focus narrowed down, the entire world fading out from around him. It was always like this when he had to fight someone, as if reality had become a tunnel and the only light was his opponent. Sounds were too loud, amplified. Movements seemed almost perilously slow compared to how fast he could comprehend them.

He saw the measured rise and fall of her hard breasts as she breathed. A muscle in her cheek twitched. Her lips curled into a deranged, gruesomely-stretched smile. Her eyes narrowed just the slightest. Her left shoulder tensed.

Then she was right there in front of his face, shattering the slowed reality of his focus. Staggering back, he was too late to avoid a quick jab from two fingers that slammed hard into his throat. He choked, stumbling back. Finding his footing, he set his feet firmly against the ground and watched as she danced back to the same position she had just left. Calm and immobile once more, she watched for his reaction.

He had underestimated her. She might be tall and willowy, but goddamn, was she fast. That jab to the neck had been delivered exactly like the deadly lunge of some poisonous snake. Open combat wasn’t going to work. He would have to play the defensive here, which really was where his karate training shone brightest. He would just have to hope that it was enough.

He saw it this time when she moved, whipping towards him like a lightning bolt. One fist came towards his nose, small and fast as a comet, while that viper-jab went for his throat again. Shifting backwards, adjusting his stance, he caught her wrists loosely and let her thump against his chest before using the force of her own rebound to toss her away. She spun instead of staggering, and her fingers jammed so far into his throat that he could practically taste her nail polish.

He grabbed for her wrist again but she had already gone back out of reach.

The jeering roar of the crowd was background noise, insignificant. They thought he was going to lose. They thought he was pathetic to even try to go up against their beloved ringmaster, competent and beautiful foe that she was.

He wasn’t going to let that happen.

She came at him again, fingers jabbing. Wrenching up his arm, he blocked the first blow and then the second that came as she immediately adjusted. Throwing his arms out, he sent her off into another balanced spin that kept her from staggering, while also building up momentum. She came back at him again and he swept out one leg, keeping all his balance on the other. The kick went wide. As she tried to adjust to get out of reach, she found herself doing just the opposite and tripped over him.

Catching her as she went down, Dagwood tried to force her all the way onto her back so he could pin her with his weight. Somehow, she ended up on top of him. Hands curled around his neck, her thumbs pushing at his spine while her other fingers pushing into his windpipe from the front.

Roll and crush her, he thought.

Before he could do anything of the sort, he felt it.

Her mouth on his shoulder, impossibly wide, encompassing more of his flesh than a mouth ever should. Pressure, and then teeth. Pain seared through him as her fangs punctured his flesh. She shifted just enough for them to be true snake fangs, the rest of her body completely normal.

Then she was gone, rubbing blood from her mouth, smearing it across her cheeks like blush. The crowd went absolutely crazy, screaming for more bloodshed.

Already he could feel hot venom pumping through his veins, stinging and burning. Fury replaced his irritation, coupled with terror unlike that which he had ever known before. All the near-death experiences he’d come across before paled to this one because this was not something from which he could come back. If he was trapped, he could fight his way out, or he could make a new exit. If he was hurt, he could heal. If he was overwhelmed, he could back out and regroup.

If he had venom in his body, shooting through him, already burning, already traveling to his heart, his lungs, his extremities, what could be done?

Nothing. He was already dead.

“I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

The woman watched him, her eyes shining with lust and triumph. Her mouth opened.

He didn’t want to hear whatever words she might have for him. If he was going to die, he wouldn’t do it lying on the ground. He would go out with a bang, living up to his purpose even to his last breath.

A roar ripped from his lips, a mingling of growl, scream, and howl. Her eyes widened, expression flickering slightly as he lurched up to his feet. Abandoning his training, his skills, his strategy, he ran at her and caught her with a fist to the jaw. Pain shot up his arm, into his wrist. Her head snapped back as if she had been hit by a brick.

He backpedaled, vision growing hazy. Slowly, she turned her head to look back at him. Her spine seemed to crackle and she worked her jaw as a dark purple blemish already blossomed on fair skin.

“Fuck you,” she hissed. She lunged for him.

Dagwood reached into his pocket and brought out the knife he had stolen from the doorman. She hit him and he fell backwards on legs that were suddenly wobbly and wouldn’t hold his weight any longer. They rolled over and over together, bodies tangled. They hit the bottom rope of the ring and then sprawled out underneath it, then scrambled apart.

No longer capable of standing, Dagwood sat up and kicked out his legs to scooch backwards along the hard concrete floor. His pants tore, but the ripping sound was lost beneath the screams and shouts of the crowd. Clearly, something very important had just happened. He just didn’t know if he would be capable of looking to see what that was. His neck felt incredibly stiff and his eyes were blurry, stinging, flooding with tears.

One voice seemed to break through all the rest of the chaos, perhaps because it was lower than volume. “I don’t believe it…”

Lifting one hand to wipe at his eyes, Dagwood tried to see what it was that the other person couldn’t believe. The world came very reluctantly into focus, emerging first as hard planes of color that gradually redefined themselves into identifiable objects. The ceiling and walls came first, then the floor and the ropes of the ring. Then, he saw the bloodied knife lying at his feet.

Lastly he saw the viper. She sat in much the same position as him, her mouth open in surprise. A trickle of blood slithered from the corner of her full lips, probably from where he hit them when he punched her. Otherwise, she didn’t seem to be hurt at all.

What he heard next was astounding. She said, “You win,” and then laughed as if it was painful. The laugh had a horrible, rusty quality to it that made his own lungs ache. Or maybe that was the venom?

She completely ignored the crowd, rising up to her feet. “Let’s talk,” she said, and walked away with her back straight and her legs steady.

Dagwood stared after her. The noise of the crowd had become one long, seamless sound that hurt his ears, hurt his soul. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore as he faded, losing his grip on himself.

But he hadn’t done all this for nothing. It seemed like his part of the investigation was ending and his findings would never have any impact upon the case, but he still wanted to know.

Somehow, he found his feet again and stumbled after her. Grabbing onto everything he could reach to try and stay upright, he nevertheless found himself crawling at some points.

He bumped into her in the middle of one of the short hallways, as she had stopped moving and was just leaning back against the wall with her eyes shut tight. Dagwood stared at her, remembering the bloody knife, but he still couldn’t quite see anything wrong with her. Then again, his eyes weren’t exactly being very attentive to detail at the moment.

The viper swallowed with incredible difficulty. “So,” she rasped. “You won. What was it you wanted to know?”

“Where…Uh, why were you talking to Kevin?”

“Because the boy isn’t as innocent as he seems,” she hissed. “We have connections. Not directly. But he was a fighter.”

“What did he…want?”

“Safety. Protection. Does it matter? We spoke. I sent him away. That’s all I can tell you, except that you’re going in the right direction. He seemed to think he was being followed.”

I wonder why, when the entire nation is on the lookout for him?

She must have picked up on his thoughts somehow, or else read the sarcastic look in his eyes. “Personally followed. As if someone was…right behind him…at all times. Maybe he has…eyes. Oh…”

Her voice came thicker, with more and more difficulty. She swallowed again hard and then gagged, her mouth opening. A thick stream of blood emerged from her mouth, pattering down her chin and to the front of her skimpy blouse. Dagwood watched with dull alarm, feeling a sympathetic desire to retch along with her. “What’s the matter with you?” he whispered.

Her tongue was covered in blood. Congealed specks stuck between the gaps in her teeth, especially around her fangs.

She stared at him and her purple eyes were hazy. Or was that the contacts she wore? Or was it simply a reflection of his own admittedly-hazy gaze?

Moving with ponderous slowness, she removed a hand from her side. Dagwood hadn’t even noticed that she’d been clamping down on that spot for all that she was worth but now that she moved her hand, he was able to see why. Her fingers were drenched with blood, her palm soaked with scarlet. A gaping puncture wound opened up high on her side, almost at her armpit. Blood had soaked her clothes and flowed freely now that she had taken pressure away.

That was where he stabbed her. Somehow, without meaning to, he had delivered a perfect blow that allowed the blade to slip between her ribs. If her mouth was bloody, he’d hit her lung.

“Shit,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean…”

A wave of dizziness overcame him, and he forgot exactly what he’d been trying to say, or even why he was saying it in the first place. After all, he was dying. Why not her as well?

She waved her bloody hand, shooing away what she saw to be meaningless platitudes. “I’ll be fine.”

The body of a shapeshifter was capable of some amazing things, the least of which was transforming into an animal. The healing prowess which came with being a shifter was unmatched anywhere in the world of humans, allowing them to recover from their injuries with astonishing speed. However, even then, there were limits. Was this one of them?

Was venom?

“I gave you all the information I know,” she gurgled. More blood slid between her lips as she spoke. “I swear I don’t know where he went. I sent him away. Didn’t want to…take the risk.”

“Fine,” Dagwood sighed. “Thank you.”

I can die now…but you don’t have to.

“You should get to a hospital,” he said.

“And what about you?”

“I don’t think I have the time for it,” he confessed. With every passing second, it became harder and harder to hold onto his consciousness.

“Would you like to hear something else interesting, Mr. Wolf Detective?”

Dagwood stared at her. His vision doubled, then tripled. She seemed to have three heads and six arms, defying all logic. In that moment, she could have been anything from a regular person, to some sort of religious deity, and he would have accepted it. The more time went on, the more likely everything seemed. Hell, pretty soon he would have a chance to get up close and personal with any deities who existed.

She continued, “Adult snakes are capable of controlling the amount of poison they deliver with every bite.”

The whole world seemed to turn on its axis. What was she saying? That all he was feeling was merely a placebo effect, a product of his mind because he had convinced himself that he had been poisoned? If so, why didn’t he start feeling better as the illusion faded?

“You won’t die,” she continued. “But you’re going to have a damn shitty night, Mr. Detective. I hope you choke on your own vomit.”

What happened next was a little hard for him to comprehend. He thought he might have bid her farewell, but it was hard to tell because he couldn’t remember actually speaking anything. Maybe it only happened in his mind?

His body seemed to move of its own accord. He felt each footfall acutely even though he wasn’t quite aware of making the decision to walk away. Sounds were unimportant. Silence or the roaring cries of a crowd, it made no difference. If people touched him, if they asked questions about how he had beaten their wonderful, beautiful ringmaster, he didn’t know. If someone shoved a handful of money into his hand and then closed his fingers around it, he didn’t care. All he knew was pain, sickness, and the cloying smell of sewer water.

His entire body seemed to be an echo. He was a transmitter, taking all, absorbing it into himself without deliberation.

Somehow, he found himself out on the street even though he had no idea how he had gotten there or who showed him the way. He had clearly gone out through the proper exit because the street was different from the one he entered by. Navigating was beyond him. The street seemed to be in the sky and the towers were upside down.

He thought that the moon looked very orange tonight.

At some point, he was in an alleyway, throwing up as his body attempted to rid itself of the toxins running rampant through him. He didn’t remember much after that until he was somehow back in his hotel room, in the bathroom. The night that followed was a chaos of expulsion which he could never recall quite clearly, although thinking of it filled his stomach with dread. He would rather not think of it at all, and his thoughts themselves shied away from the subject with a vehemence matched by little else in the natural world.

Somewhere around 7 a.m., his body rebelled less frequently, and he managed to grab some sleep. Well, it was less like sleep and more like he was passing out in shaky little bursts, but the line between the two was quite blurred.

About an hour after that, he collapsed into bed for the final time and felt sleep pulling him deep into its clutches. Knowing that he had survived yet another brush with death gave him no real solace. If he died in his sleep, it might come as a blessing.