I knew something was wrong when I stepped into the office that day. Besides the fact that everything was suddenly black and white and everyone was dressed up as if they were in a bad mystery film, coupled with the fact that I didn’t have an office, or that I never monologue all of my actions on a daily basis, something was terribly wrong. I pulled my hat off and tossed it onto the rack without looking, knowing that it had landed just where I wanted to; on the slightly duller than the others spoke, worn with so many uses. I shrugged my jacket off and let it fall, trusting that my secretary, the wonderful Destiny Byryno, would catch it and hang it up for me. She did, just as I thought. Man, I’m good.

“Good evening, Mr. Noekon. You have a few messages that you might want to take interest in,” Destiny told me while she walked to the other side of the room to hang up my jacket with my hat. Today she had decided to wear a white dress that swayed just below her knees. A big, matching belt cinched it at the waist, showing off her skinny, lean figure. Jaded eyes flashed back up at me curiously and I realized I still needed to respond.

“I’m sure I do, Ms. Byryno. I’ll get right do them,” I promised her. An empty promise, full of holes and lies. We both knew that, but no one called my bluff. It was just part of the daily routine around the office. Destiny put her hands in her hips and looked at me, measuring me up I would like to think, as if she thought she had a chance to take me on in a battle of wits. The kid didn’t stand a chance and she realized this. She sighed and moved back to her desk, sitting herself behind the typewriter. That must have been new, before she wrote everything by hand. She had remarkable penmanship after working for me for years.

“If you say so, Mr. Noekon. Shouldn’t you be getting to work now?” She hinted. Right, I did need to do that. I nodded to her and walked off to the my office, pushing the door open with the private eye logo. It stared me down, but I stared at it right back. One of these days one of us would blink, and I had no intention of it being me. At Destiny clearing her throat, I turned away with a silent promise of returning to our battle later on.

I settled myself behind my desk with a sigh and looked at the assortment of papers before me. Files on the dead, the missing and the ill. I picked up one, glancing over it curiously. It was of a girl, codenamed ‘BMW‘. She was a curious case, one that was obviously out of touch with reality. This crackpot writer claimed to have created half of the city, that they were characters in her stories. I read some of her work, not half bad, not for someone crazy at least. Coupled with her story was a second one, one of her partner, ‘Toto‘. She claimed the same story, of most of the city’s inhabitants being objects of her imagination. Luckily they were both locked up safely in the Funny Farm, an asylum for people just like them.

Quickly, I jotted down my signature on both papers and tossed them into my ‘done’ basket. They were the only two papers there. I looked from that basket to the other one labeled ‘to do’. The stack was taller than I was when I stood up. Content, I kicked back in my chair and put my feet on my desk, leaning back. My hands found their way to cushion the back of my head and I closed my eyes.

“Ms. Byryno, I am taking a break from my work. Please hold all calls unless they’re important or from my daughter,” I told her. I felt proud that I had gotten that much work done before dinner time. Perhaps after my usual, quick nap I’d be able to get some more done before I called it quits. It was hard being the best detective in town, make note of that. It wasn’t all glorified gunfights and car chases. It was actually boring and hard, full of dead ends and pointless bantering. Today though, would be different. Or so I thought. Fate seemed to have a different idea.

“Evening Natty,” I heard him call from the waiting room. My eye popped open and I looked Destiny’s twin over. He was scrawny with the same overall features as my secretary. Today he was wearing a black rain jacket over his suit, a dripping umbrella in hand. Funny, it wasn’t raining. Suspiciously I glanced over my shoulder, just in time to see the sudden downpour cover the city, lightning and thunder rolling through the atmosphere to set the mood. There, that was better.

Back to the matter at hand, Fate. He never came into the office, not unless he had something to give to Destiny or had to talk to her about. Or if something important was to happen. I nodded and waved to him in greeting and leaned back once more, absently listening to the twins’ chatter. They were a cute pair of kids, always happy and full of energy. At least Destiny was. Fate, on the other hand, was a little more morbid, especially when it came to things of the future. More than once I had suspected him of crimes, but could never pin anything on him. He was a slippery fiend, like an otter.

“Make sure you tell everyone hello from me,” I called out to be friendly. I had to be friendly. People trusted you when you were friendly. I needed people to trust me and tell me information. It was the only way I was able to finish cases. I heard Fate grunt an affirmative, more concerned with his sister than me. Touché, Mr. Byryno, touché.

It was a combination of things that sent me asleep. The sound of the pattering rain, the abnormally hot office, the way the fan lazily spun round and round and round and round… it had been too much and plunged me deep into the dark recesses of sleep. And I was out, down for the count like a boxer that was hit one too many times in the jaw, or a baby that had been fed a warm bottle and had nestled close to it’s mother, or even a dog on a lazy, august afternoon, the temperature sweltering, heat waves rising off of the ground, distorting anything you looked at. Whichever way you saw it. I was down and out. Asleep. Taking forty winks. Dead to the world. Napping.

And I dreamed. Dreamed of things that were normally unimaginable. I dreamed of worlds where the word ‘chair’ was a swear word and you had to wear purple only on the seventh of each day. Where woman wore their hair on their elbows and men sat around all day eating candy bars. If I could, I would have written novels on the fantastical images I imagined while I dreamt. I would have shared with the word the knowledge that I had gained in this time of limbo, where I had learned the meaning of life. I would have, should have, but my dreams had been interrupted with a sweet, seductive whisper.

“Jnat Noekon?” It whispered through my conscious. It shattered the glass fragile words, jolting me back to awareness. “Jnat Noekon? Mr. Noekon?” The voice said again, pulling me further and further away from my imaginings and back to the real world, just like the cry of a siren. And I was the sailor, helpless to do anything but obey it. I wanted to scream, to cry in frustration and horror and the things I was losing. I didn’t want to wake up and face the cold, harsh truth that was real life. Here, I was something greater.

“Jnat, wake up! You have a client,” Someone said with the harsh, screeching voice of a harpy. That was accompanied with something slamming against the back of my skull. I cautiously opened my eyes to stare at the stars that twinkled and spun around my head, giggling and laughing at me. Laugh at me would they, I’ll show them. “Mr. Noekon,” The harpy said once more, grating on my nerves. I scowled and turned to regard her, wishing I held a sword in my fist at that moment to chase her away. Rather than the feathered freak I was expecting, I came face to face with my secretary. It wasn’t too unusual to get carried away with one’s dreams after all.

Hastily I sat up to compose myself, smoothing my hair back into the ponytail I had it pulled into. I could sense Destiny looking down at me and I had no earthly clue why. Perhaps there was a bit of drool in the corner of my mouth. A sneaky check assured me that nothing was there. I fussed and smoothed my shirt down, kicking my feet off of the table to sit up. Once I was sure everything was in working order, I looked up.

“Now then, Ms. Byryno, where is…” My voice stopped on me, drying up and shriveling like a discarded snakeskin in the middle of the desert. I found the source of the siren song from before. It came from a lovely, beautiful figure that stood in my doorway, black hair pulled up into a careful twist at the back of her head. Brilliant red eyes were pained, magnified with the amount of tears that welled up and fell down smooth, marble like skin. In those few, breath taking moments, I understood just what the angels in heaven looked like. I attempted to summon my voice once more from where it had vanished. “My client,” I managed to squeak out.

I didn’t remember my office ever being this hot or cramped. I reached up to loosen my shirt slightly, although there was nothing there to loosen. No tie, not even a few buttons to undo. Destiny was looking at me like I was crazy, but I ignored her. Could she not see the heavenly presence that was gracing us at that moment? Then again, harpies never saw the beauty in the world. They destroyed it with their screeching voices, just as she destroyed my dream. I would have to remind her about that later about waking me up.

I tried desperately once more to cool my office down, but to no avail. Apparently my office was going to be channeling heat from Hell itself. That was fine, I would work around it. I’ve had to deal with more stressful things before. I quickly swept myself to my feet and gestured the angel down into a chair while I turned to Destiny. I might as well put her to work. I wasn’t paying her to sit around and look pretty. She’d never get a cent in all her life.

“Ms. Byryno, would you please get this lovely woman some tissues and perhaps a cup of tea. Can you not see how much distress she’s in?” I demanded. Destiny rolled her eyes before snapping on the trademark ‘I’ll one day kill you in your sleep’ smile.

“Right away, Mr. Noekon,” She said cheerfully, quickly darting off to do as I had commanded. I nodded, content with that before I turned once more to the woman, sympathy shining in my eyes. The poor thing, looking so lost, alone and hurt. I had to help her, there was no choice in the matter. I began to theorize what the problem could be. Based upon her attired and the look of complete hopelessness upon her face, I would say she was now a widow of a few hours, her husband brutally murdered within their own home to which she had come home to find. Of course she had been out to the theater with her friends, enjoying a nice, pleasant evening before retiring to her mansion in the countryside with wild fantasies of a thrilling night to return to. Instead, she had come home to a nightmare.

“Please Mrs., what’s your name?” I pleaded, lowering myself into my chair. She sniffled rather loudly, dotting at her eyes with the corner of her handkerchief. I gave her all the time in the world to calm down and compose herself. I understood, losing someone was very traumatic.

“Miss. My name is Crystene Lerouxisx,” She said. I blinked in surprise before quickly hiding it away. So she wasn’t married. Then her long term boyfriend was being threatened. Perhaps by a mob, or some kind of city gang. He had gotten in too deep with the street dealers and now owed millions of dollars to them. Only they were impatient and had kidnapped him, and now she wanted me to find him.

“Well, Miss Lerouxisx, what can I do for you?” I asked in my most sympathetic tone. Destiny returned with the cup of tea and tissues, laying them in front of Crystene with a small, trusting smile, patting her hand to comfort her. I shot her a glare and quickly shooed her back to her own desk, making sure the door was closed behind her. Now, more than ever, the room became stuffier.

“It… it’s my… my half-sister,” She whispered, a fresh trail of tears appearing once more. I leaned forward to take her hand in mine, although I was thrown for a loop. Her half-sister? All this for someone that she was hardly related to? Must be a pretty close family to be this torn up.

“What happened to her? Please, be as precise as you can. I need as many details as you can remember. Anything, no matter how trifle, can be important,” I explained to her. We waited in a tense silence while Crystene got a hold of herself. She looked up at me with those brilliant, trusting eyes, ones that just pleaded for me to save her, help her. I was drawn in, hook, line and sinker.

“We were all vacationing in the Bahamas, the whole family. We’ve been there for a week and everything was going as smoothly as ever. Nothing wrong could possibly happen. It was a few days before we were planning to leave. Kairene, my sister, was up eating breakfast with her British boyfriend. I… I think everyone else was still sleeping then. Next thing we know, we heard the boyfriend screaming for help, that something had happen. We all race up and out, they were eating outside, just in time to see a… to see…” She hesitated here, hiccupping quietly. I smoothed my hands over her hair, cooing quietly while I tried to coax it out of her. What was it they saw? A dragon? It wasn’t unheard of in this world. Or perhaps it was something far more sinister. Something so sinister and evil, she cannot dare to speak of it allowed. Following that vibe, I grabbed a pad of paper and pen, pushing it to her.

“Just write it down. I wont force you to say that vile, evil thing aloud,” She gave a watery smile to me in thanks, neatly scrawling it down on the paper before she passed it down to me. It took me a few seconds to read the actual words, considering I was distracted by the beautiful loops and curls that was her writing. It was the handwriting of something divine, something that you only see in the old, dusty Bibles within a Church.

Finally I focused on the word itself and my blood ran cold. My teeth clenched against each other to the point where I was sure that they’d surely break from the pressure. My hand shook as I resisted the urge to crumple the perfectly good piece of paper, but it was now tainted. The entire pad by that single, unholy word. I wanted to scream and cry out, curse the thing itself for daring to be seen by innocent eyes. Instead, I reached into my desk and grabbed a lighter, setting the pad aflame.

“Do not worry, Miss Lerouxisx, I will take this case and I will save your half-sister before it’s too late.”