I staggered away, feeling cold inside, trying to push the laughter down. Sometimes that happens when I kill. It's like I'm a Jack-In-The-Box toy and each kill I make is a turn of the crank. It occurs to me that Jack is himself a clown, not unlike the Pennywhistle thing I've killed. For some reason, this sets my demonic laughter off afresh.

The problem, I think, is that it's been too long since the last time I've killed. The joy and excitement overwhelmed me a little.

A giggle escaped my lips. With it, the chill deepened. But after that one little outburst, I was in control again. Yes, the madness was contained, stuffed back down in its dark place with the lid firmly closed.

That was when my phone rang. I answered at once. "Dark here."

"Darryl, please. I need you."

The voice was feminine, vaguely familiar, sweet, and full of fear.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"The woman from the bar. Please hurry." She gave me her address. I knew the place.

"What's the problem?" I asked, knowing from her voice the fear was genuine, not a flimsy excuse for a midnight tryst. A pity.

"There's someone in my apartment," she whispered. "He's in the living room, just standing there. I don't know who or what he is, but he's full of voices. Mr. Mittens says he's--he's--not human."

"I'm on my way."

I kept the phone to my ear as I went. Her apartment was just a few blocks further from the police station. My damsel from the "Totem & Fetish" did not live in a good neighborhood.

"He's coming toward the bedroom," she said breathlessly.

At this point, even with her building in sight, I wasn't confident in my ability to get to my lady's bedroom before the thing killed her. Still, I tucked my cellphone into my pocket and leaped for the fire escape stair, caught it, and pulled myself up. While I can do a dozen pull-ups in the gym, it's a lot harder to do this sort of thing while fully dressed and after running all-out for three city blocks.

But I managed. I was panting hard and low on energy by the time I rolled onto the platform. I was so close.

A voice, small and tinny, escaped from the phone in my pocket. "Darryl! It's a clown!"

On hearing this, I leaped to my feet and bolted up the metal stairs two at a time. She was on the third floor. How many rooms would I need to search?

Ahead, the door on the landing was open. It could have been anyone's apartment, but I knew it was hers. How? I could feel the shapeless demon's mirth as it hunted my blonde cat lady--or should I say, dead-cat lady? Whatever.

Then I saw him. It was another Pennywhistle. Identical to the one I'd just fought.

My knife was in my hand as I crossed the threshold. I was ready.

Stabbing a shapeless demon is never a safe thing to do, but I wasn't thinking about that as I charged across the darkened living room. It fled into the bedroom. I followed.

What I saw brought me to a stunned halt.

My blonde, dead-cat lady was standing with her right arm extended at her intruder. Surrounding her, filling the available wall space in the room were shelves, bookshelves, and little tables--and on all of them were dead cats. There were kittens piled high in a basket, old fat cats stacked like pyramids, a string of black cats on a string, a shelf of tabbies, a row of Persians, and even of few of those creepy little cornish rexes. I think there were more Siamese than anything else, and many of those were adorned with jewelry. For the most part, they were posed and clean. In a few places, they are piled in a jumble, like bowling pins after a strike. A few were buried in dust. A bag full of them were stuffed under the bed.

But these feline mummies were not simply inert, no. Their eyes glowed like little golden fires, sending streams of pale yellow light through the air where they converged on the Pennywhistle demon.

The clown stood there, as if pinned in place, flailing his arms as if he were trying to push the light away.

"Quickly," the woman said. "My cats can't hold him much longer."

When the clown turned to face me, I swear I saw real fear in its eyes. What was this woman that she could strike fear into a shapeless demon?

But I didn't ask. Instead, I struck--poking at the creature's body, slicing wherever I could. It's not safe to be too close to one of these things. Their touch, their breath, and the blackness that leaks out of their wounds is all deadly. I didn't expect to come away from this fight unscathed. Maybe not even alive.

Yet I survived. Somehow, the strange yellow light blunted the shapeless demon's powers. He flailed at me ineffectively, like he was a mime caught in an invisible box. I struck him at will until his darkness flowed out and he flopped to the ground, lifeless.

The woman I met at the bar still stood by her bed, her hair in wild disarray. It is only then that I noticed how revealing her sleeping attire was. I have the impression that if there were just a little more light, I'd have a very spectacular view of her shapely figure.

But I'm not easily distracted. I checked to make sure the demon on the floor was dead. Looking for a pulse didn't seem safe, so I dropped to my knees and stabbed.

And stabbed. And stabbed. The thing bled shadow, inky streams of ichor that floated through the air.

As I worked through my inner darkness, I found myself singing softly.

"All around the mulberry bush..."

Where had that stupid song come from?

Stab. Stab.

"The monkey chased the weasel."

I bit my lip, in an effort to stop the song.

Stab. Stab. The clown face beneath me deflated in a puff of darkness.

With sudden joy I cried out, "Pop goes the weasel!"

And then the laughter I've been holding in since my first kill escaped. I tried to make it stop, but all I could do was rise to my feet, sheathe my weapon and stumble for the door.

Jack was out of his box again, and he wasn't going back in.

I resolved not to look back at the woman I'd just rescued. I didn't want to see the fear in her eyes. No. It's best to remember the sly smile she'd given me at the bar when she said she was good at "coaxing."

She had definitely wanted me. I could have scored if I hadn't let my inner psycho out where she could see. Well, that's how life goes.

I leaped out the door and down the fire escape. What I saw at the bottom stopped me cold, however. Hundreds of yellow, luminous cat eyes, staring up at me. Only the eyes, floating like fireflies all around. There were no cat bodies anywhere. I blinked, expecting them to vanish.

"Here Darryl, Darryl, Darryl."

I turned to the voice--and it was the dead-cat lady in all her black lace finery, lit from behind by the light of the moon.

"Meow," I said. I blinked again, surprised at myself. What I'd intended to say was something clever, along the lines of, "did you know there are a bunch of floating cat eyes down there?"

I tried again. "Meow."

"Sorry to use my magic on you, Darryl Dear," she said in a sultry voice, "but you tried to run away before I could reward you for saving my life."

Was she smiling? I could only see her in silhouette.

She turned and climbed the stairs. Flesh, white as milk, flashed within the lacy garment she wore. It occurred to me that I liked milk a lot.

"Follow me," she said.

"Meow," I explained as I followed her, hoping that whatever my reward entailed, it involved a saucer of cow juice. It was frustrating that I couldn't use words.

She laughed. "Of course, Darryl Dear. Anything you like."

As soon as we were inside again, she put her arms around me and drew me into a kiss.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not the kind of guy who picks up women, though I've had the occasional hot date. I'd also had some pretty steamy long term relationships. Nothing ever quite worked out, though, because eventually any woman I have in my life sees my scary side and runs. My mom included.

Nothing, however, prepared me for that kiss. It was like the laughter that takes control of me after a kill--but where that filled me with cold, this felt like fever. Suddenly, all those horrible screeching noises cats make when they're in heat made so much sense to me.

What I did next surprised even me--I started sniffing her. Somehow, I couldn't get enough of her scent as I rubbed my nose along her neck.

As she reached up to stroke my hair, she made a sort of rumbling snorting sound. A purr.

Suddenly, she pushed me back. "Your will is your own," she said in a breathless voice. Her words dampened the burning inside me, but didn't quench it.

"Can I speak?" I asked. "Yes."

"Sorry to do that to you," she said between purrs. "But I wanted a chance to persuade you to stay."

"You did? I mean, you do?"

"Yes, Mr. Dark. Is that so hard to understand?"

I considered her for a moment, gazing into her eyes as she stroked my hair. "Actually, yes. You saw--or rather heard--"

"Oh, I could tell you were part demon since the moment we met. Can I help it if I like that in a man?"

Part demon? Was that some kind of metaphor, or did she believe there was something supernatural about me? There wasn't, of course. I had two very human parents. A mother whom I frightened away, and a father who--well, paid to put me through years of therapy.

I looked around, as if seeing her apartment for the first time. Even the living room had its share of taxidermied cats. Was it possible that this woman had so many pets and they all died natural deaths? Perhaps. But maybe they'd been sacrificed.

No. They weren't dead. Whatever procedure had been used to mummify them, I now sensed that it had been done while they were still alive--and that they remained aware even now. How could I know that? Had the cats whispered that to me when I'd been one of them a short time ago?

"What did you do to me?"

She started walking toward the bedroom, tugging my collar. "The same thing I'm doing now, Mr. Dark. Coaxing you. I'm very good at it."

I had to admit it. She was.