Morning caught me alone in my bed. Cory was perched on my coat rack. I had taught the monster to poop in the toilet or on windowsills. There was no excuse for him to shit on my sweaters.

"My Lord is growing fat and stupid." Cory pointed out.

"Eat crow." I advised him. I listened and heard that the girls were awake. Isidore and Dr. Leidenfrost were both getting up. I had to get up for work anyway.

I found something clean to wear to keep me warm as I walked to work. My crow was going to stay in the apartment. I kissed my daughters goodbye and left for work.

As the morning sun barely made it daytime in that autumn overcast: I walked in a darkness. Always I was alert for the Folk, never knowing when they might strike at me to finish me off. I feared cats also, but at least I knew their language. I had recently learned it at the conclusion of my adventures with the cats.

It gave me no warning to what was to come. That is not to say there was no warning. I always knew, somehow, about Shale. On that day he came up behind me I thought he might be standing there. I felt a kind of fear that I might be right: that he was behind me and he was tired of trying to catch me.

So he shot me in the back, six times. It was like I felt a sharp jagged punch in the back and a hot spurt of pain in the front as all but one of his bullets passed through me. Then I fell over and died, bleeding to death on the concrete.

I had chosen to go through the park, that day. It was a longer way to walk to get to work. So I died there and was dragged through to the Fairys'. They used their magic to make me breathe and to make my heart beat again. They used magic to reverse the flow of blood from my body and to reverse the devastating gunshot wounds. They left the last one though, the one buried in my spine, they wouldn't touch the bullet, the lead. It was not possible for them to remove it or to fix the wound. It wasn't a fatal wound, just an insanely painful one and a crippling one.

Shale got paid double. My hospital bill, to remove the bullet and supply me with a wheelchair, was paid for by the same mysterious person. He wasn't a mystery to me. Shale had told me in dreams that it was Samual Monica, father of the man I had murdered. I hoped that mauling me would be enough.

Instead, Shale kept stalking me. Not at first. It was just the occasional reminder or the signs that he had invaded my path or that he was watching me and I would see him there. That all came later.

Home became too familiar of a place. At least I was there as my daughters began to walk. I would never walk again. In some strange way I was okay with this. I felt I was being punished enough so that I no longer felt the burden of what I had done.

Dr. Leidenfrost had changed. She was very content with her family. All of her lust had faded, leaving her with a unique sense-of-humor and creativity in its wake. Both Isidore and I looked to her for everything. That she was the matriarch of our household I was certain.

It was in an early morning when there was a pattern of frost on the dark window that I shuddered and woke. Its flesh was as white as snow, its body was that of a girl, its face was sylvan and its eyes were shaped like almonds and glowed a pale violet. The wings were like a cape and thin and translucent, but glowing with energy in the cold and darkness outside.

I opened the window and it stepped inside, bringing with it some of the cold and the dark. Cory saw this and said:

"My Lord, this visitor is of the fae; she's a fairy of some type." Cory hopped up onto the windowsill beside her. She watched him and then looked at me.

"Your life was saved and you owe a debt." She spoke very quietly and slowly, her voice sounded far away and held a strange echo.

"What is this debt?" I asked.

"A life for a life. You must save the life of a fairy. It is fair." She stamped one of her tiny feet dramatically.

"I will." I assured her. "Who is this fairy I must save?"

"Is he always this stupid?" She asked Cory.

"My Lord has grown this stupid. He is also getting fat." Cory made a noise like a washing machine about to cycle down from a loud load. It was one of his laughs.

"Hey!" I protested.

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"Carnius comes for me. I am his prey. My key home is gone, stolen. You will save me. It was I that saved you." She put her tiny fists on her shallow hips and her glowing bug eyes stared into my soul.

"You can't go home?" I asked her.

"Only here could I be safe. Carnius must get through you to me. You would not be alive if I had not helped you!" She continued.

"I do not live alone." I replied. "This Carnius sounds dangerous. My life is not worth risking my family." I told her. She thought about this and sat down slowly. Then she looked up and said:

"Then you must destroy Carnius. You must protect me and you must protect your family." She negotiated. I nodded.

"How do I destroy Carnius?" I asked. She shrugged.

"I will show you where he lives. I cannot go home without my key." The fairy explained. "You understand?"

"Let's go, then." I told her. "What is your name?"

"Sylvia." The fairy introduced herself. "My name is Silverbell; just call me Sylvia."

I put on my coat and blanket and we left the apartment as the sun was just coming up. Cory on my right shoulder and Silverbell on my left shoulder.

"I am Cory." My crow introduced himself to her as we were heading down the sidewalk. It was freezing out. I kept wheeling us away before I asked:

"Okay, which way to this bum?" I asked. Silverbell guided me. As we went she hid in my coat's large hood, terrified of the gaze of humans.

"This is where Carnius lives." Silverbell had stopped us near a ditch overlooking the back road behind Festival Moon, the over sized mansion in the hills just north of town.

I examined the hills, the woods, the bushes. I saw no signs of the creature's camp. "Where?"

"You do no see the massive house across the way?" Silverbell scolded.

"You mean Anson Carni?" I looked at the mansion. The creature that wanted to eat her was the wealthy Anson Carni.

"Anson lives in the fairylands." Silverbell informed me. "Carnius lives there, as Anson, living his entire life since the cradle."

"What a life it has been." I commented. Anson was an infamous debutante playboy. He had inherited a vast fortune and lived to spend it.

I took the mission seriously. I came back with a camera and I had Cory spy on him. I figured that killing Carnius would be the easy part. It was what comes after murdering someone that bothered me. I ruminated on the problem.

"Sylvia, where is the real Anson?" I asked her. "The one without a goat's tail?"

"He is in the queen's court. He could never leave because he has eaten in the fairylands." Silverbell divulged.

"I was hoping maybe we could replace the fake Anson with the real one, like in The Man In The Iron Mask." I had so much disappointment in my voice that Silverbell said:

"It was a good idea." Silverbell tried encouraging me.

"How was it a good idea if it couldn't work?" Cory wondered.

"I can't think of anything else. I've got to assassinate him." I concluded. I stalled for weeks, purchasing a hunting rifle from a disreputable pawn shop and stalking him some more.

One day he caught us sitting there outside his driveway taking pictures. He was driving out in his limo and rolled down the window, as if to get a better view.

I'm not sure what a creature like that can see. I was sitting there with my clean beard and dirty coat in my wheelchair. I had old boots on my ruined legs and a shiny new camera in my hands. I had a crow with one white feather. I was staring right back at him and I saw nothing but my own reflection in his black sunglasses.

When he took them down I saw his eyes were the same, the reflection of me even clearer. In there I saw Silverbell also, saw a purple aura around her and her outline as though an x-ray. He knew she was there and he made the limo stop.

I wheeled away as fast as I could. We went through the garden, tearing up some gravel. The drooling thing had lost its slippers. Its cloven feet splatted grossly as it skidded after us on hoof.

"Wait!" Anson snorted. His silk robe got muddied and torn as he bore after us.

"We aren't the food you are looking for!" Cory squawked at him, swooping past the creature while I was escaping.

I was sweating as I got my wheelchair up the slight incline to the back road. We started away and the panic began to subside. We had lost him in the gardens. "That was too close."

"This is what you are telling me? I think I felt it was too close, more than you did." Silverbell admonished; the fear making the pitch of her voice almost melodious.

"He will now be able to figure out who my Lord is and come to our home." Cory predicted.

"You are right." I agreed.

The next morning I went to the spot I had chosen to shoot from. I had not tested the gun and I was hoping it would work. I'd figured out how to take it apart and clean it and I was mostly sure it would work. I missed the first shot and he went for cover. Unfortunately for him: he took cover from me the wrong direction and had his back to me. So I shot him in the back.

"Must go now!" Cory flapped around, excited by the gunfire and the killing. I looked through the scope and saw he was still moving. His glamour fell away and I could see his ugliness beneath the skin and his swishing goat's tail. I aimed and fired the third bullet in the gun, finishing him off.

"Now it's time to go." I decided. I wheeled away, taking the empty weapon with me. As we rolled I broke it down and stored it in the diaper bag I had brought. I was going to have to get rid of it. On the way home I put one piece of it into each trashcan I came to. It was the best plan I could come up with. By the time we were home I had an empty diaper bag to throw away.

The death of Anson Carni was in the news a week later, as though it had just happened. A man named Castini Ishbaal confessed to the shooting. He had come forward and shown that he even had the rifle used in the killing.

I was dumbfounded. The only way for Castini to get the rifle was to follow me and take each piece after I discarded it. I couldn't understand why.

"Seems you are safe now." I told Silverbell.

"There is no safety for me in this world. I am trapped here. If I ever go home: I will tell Anson what happened. I can only go home if I can find my stolen key." Silverbell sat and told me.

Cory offered her one of his sentiments: "Home is wherever you are."