My travels have, oddly, brought me back around to Asakusa, a neighborhood of Tokyo that I've become particularly fond of. Between work and traveling, I've spent too long away from my new book though! A friend recently asked me what she needed to know to catch up in the story. I told her, "Detectives apprehend the Boogeyman, who has allegedly kidnapped 3 children. They want to nail him, but everyone deserves a defense. Attorney Nabila Sangare has come to defend Dis, the incubus, the Boogeyman."
***I should also note that this is a crime/dark fantasy story. If you are not comfortable with fiction dealing with sex crimes, this probably isn't for you.
DUN DUN
Burgundy Monster Force Interrogation Room
4:34 AM
Waiting until the heavy steel
door closed behind the detectives, attorney Nabila Sangare sat down in the
stiff chair across from the monster. As she opened her leather-bound folder on
the table, she tried to look it in the eyes. Even hunched over, its black eyes
fixed on the table, it was hard to look at.
“Dis, is it?” She forced herself
to look at the tall, skeletal thing. With a black sweatshirt and sweatpants
draped over its emaciated body, it wore the clothes of a human like an
unconvincing costume. Sangare had dealt with many strange cases, strange
creatures, but nothing like this. The young girl had warned her that her “adoptive
father”—Dis, the monster handcuffed to the table—looked frightening. He looked
like a creature that haunted nightmares. And he might’ve been exactly that.
He looked up, his eyelids
shifting with his glistening gaze. There was life in those oil-black eyes.
There shouldn’t have been, but there was.
“Dis, I’m here to help you. Do
you know how attorney-client privilege works? Do you know what I’m here to do?”
He was silent, his black and red
face not moving. Sangare wondered if there was some kind of magic hidden in
that stillness.
“I’m here to give you a legal
defense. The prosecution, the state,” she gestured to the door, “those
detectives are going to do everything they can to put these charges on you.”
She looked down at the folder and swallowed a grimace. “Five counts of
assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, three counts of kidnapping, one
count of indecent conduct with a minor child. I’m here to help you tell your
side of the story.”
It kept looking at her, but
didn’t answer. Sangare avoided its obsidian gaze.
“You can tell me everything or
you can tell me nothing, it’s your choice, but the less you tell me the less I
can help.”
It blinked. “That’s what they
said.”
“The detectives? I’m sure they
did. They wanted you to confess. But I’m not a cop. I’m your advocate in the
courtroom. Did they tell you that you had a right to an attorney?” She waited.
She needed the thing to trust her and that started with dialogue. If it
wouldn’t at least talk to her, it would never trust her.
“Yes, I think so.”
“I’m that attorney. Anything you
tell me, I can give you your legal options and make a defense for you. I cannot
prosecute you, I cannot put you in jail, I cannot tell anyone anything about
what you’ve told me. Do you understand?”
Its eyes narrowed. “Why would
you help me?”
Sangare blinked, taken aback.
“I’m a public defender, that’s my job.”
That narrow-eyed look remained.
“Everyone accused of a crime
gets a defense, they get a defender. That’s how the justice system works.”
The angry incredulity turned to
confusion. Its gaze fell. “Even me?”
“Yes. Even you. And I will give
you the best defense I can.”
The creature was quiet. Sangare
opened her mouth to speak again, but it looked up.
“Do you think I did the things
they say?”
Sangare shook her head. “It
doesn’t matter what I think.”
“If you think I hurt the
children—did what they accuse me of—you’d never defend me.”
She took a breath. “To be
honest, I don’t know you. But I can see Violet cares about you. All the
children do. So, no, I don’t think you hurt them.” She hoped it couldn’t see
through her practiced lie. She hoped it didn’t have some kind of magic to see
through her.
It looked at the table. The
chains on the cuffs clinked as the monster scratched at the eight punctures on
the table. Sangare eyed the marks, realizing with a start that the creature’s
fingernails made the marks. It punctured
the steel? Skeletal thin, it
didn’t look capable of that kind of strength. It had to be magic.
“Did they tell you what I am?”
it asked.
Sangare held her breath, looking
up from the gouges in the table. “Yes.”
“And you still think I’m
innocent?”
“I don’t judge people on what
they are.” It’s enough to know what
they’ve done.
He looked up at her again. In
its gaunt, red-painted face and black eyes, something broke through the
monstrous mask. Desperation. Fear.
“I didn’t do what they say. I
didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I never hurt them.”
Sangare gave a firm nod she knew
was convincing. “I believe you.”
He leaned in and his voice got
quiet. Sangare resisted the urge to pull away. “Don’t let them put me in a
cell. I’ll lose my mind. Please.”
Telling the officers that she
didn’t feel she was in any danger from the incubus, nor was Dis in danger of
fleeing, they begrudgingly unlocked his handcuffs.
Sangare watched it—It? Him? She hadn’t decided—massage its
thin wrists and gratefully flex its long, wide hands, the same way every other
defendant did. It looked down at the snaked chains on the floor with a glint of
fear in its eyes.
Him, she determined. Though her client was not human, he had fear. And
if he had fear, he might have remorse, which was more than she could say about
some of her human clients. And, for that matter, some of her human colleagues.
“Dis, that is your name,
correct? Or is it a nickname?”
The incubus folded his hands in
his lap. “It’s my name.” He spoke quietly, slowly, as if unsure of the words. In
the glaring fluorescent light, he kept his head low, bony shoulders hunched. At
first, the posture appeared to be the natural shape of his skeleton, a tall
monster that loomed over others. But when she looked closer, she saw
nervousness in his flickering gaze. He glanced sidelong at the close brick
walls and scrunched inward, as if afraid he might be crushed.
“What’s your last name?”
It took him a moment to speak.
“I don’t have one.”
“What was your father’s last
name?”
He glanced up, but said nothing.
“Your father was an incubus, is
that right?”
He nodded.
“Did you ever see…” she paused. Him? It? That question again. “Him?” If it rapes, it’s a man, no matter what else
it is.
Dis shook his head.
“What about your mother, what
was her last name? Your mother was human, correct?”
He considered it. “I don’t want
to say.”
“Why not?”
“She didn’t want anyone to know.
About me.”
Sangare made a note on the page in
front of her. “Is you mother still alive?”
“No.”
He killed her. It was a sudden thought she was glad didn’t show on
her face. “How did she die?”
He hesitated. “She killed
herself.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
He didn’t respond.
“If she’s gone though, I think
you can say her last name.”
He shook his head again. “I
don’t want to say.”
At the top of the file, she
wrote Dis Smith. Productive start,
she thought sourly. I don’t even know his
real name. “All right. Can you tell me the kids’ names?”
A moment of consideration
slipped by. “Violet, Theo and Ruby.”
She made a note. “Last names?”
He looked up. “No.”
“Dis, you must know that, even
if you’re somehow cleared of the charges against you tomorrow, those kids won’t
come back with you. If they don’t go back to their families, they’ll go to
foster care. If you really care about them…” She studied the creature. “What do
you think is best?”
His eyes flickered, polished
black gems shifting in the light. “They can’t go back.”
Sangare was about to argue, but
stopped. There was something dark in his voice. “What do you mean? Why not?”
He took a breath, his thin
shoulders rising. Sangare realized it was the first time she’d seen him breathe.
“I can’t say.”
She set the pen down. The rows of
blank whiteness and empty lines on the papers in front of her glared. “Dis, if
you don’t help me, I can’t defend you. I can tell you that returning those kids
to their families is the only thing that will make bail possible. As it is, a
dark magic cre—humanoid,” she quickly corrected, “they will hold you in remand.
Ninety percent of defendants accused of a violent crime—like assaulting a
police officer—who also use black magic are held in remand.”
He shook his head. “What does
that mean?”
Sangare’s brow furrowed. Doesn’t he watch TV? “It means without
bail. You stay in jail until your trial.”
His eyes widened, a true show of
fear on his terrifying face that seemed impossible.
“But if the kids are returned to
their families, we may be able to negotiate bail.”
With one clawed finger, he
picked at the gouges in the steel table.
“So, tell me their names.” She
raised her pen.
He kept picking, making a
screeching sound that scratched Sangare’s skull. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I promised them I wouldn’t.”
“Who? The kids?”
He nodded.
Sangare studied his face, black
eyes, crimson ridges sticking out of charcoal skin, a red frown. She cocked her
head. “Were the kids abused? In their homes?”
His eyes flickered. “I can’t
say.”
She paused. “Sexually abused?”
His hands pulled inward and his
shoulders sank, like he wanted to retreat into his own skeletal body.
Either he has no guile whatsoever and the prosecution will pick him apart, she bit the inside of her
lip, or he’s a perfect liar. She
wasn’t sure which she preferred.
“Ok, in that case, let me tell
you what will happen. If they were sexually abused, the child psychologist will
find out. They will attribute the trauma they all have to you. But if you
volunteer the information, that will make a much better case for you protecting
the kids. So, is that what happened? You were protecting them?” Not a bad story, but still won’t excuse
kidnapping.
“I can’t say what happened,” he
said, after a moment. “But, yes, I protect them.”
“All right, so, assuming you
protect them,” and you’re not playing me
for a fool “how did you find out? How did you meet them? Who was first?”
“I met Violet first. She…” he
stopped, as if reconsidering.
“Go on. Like I said, I’m here to
help. I can’t bring other charges against you, even if I wanted to.”
He nodded, but didn’t look
convinced. “She was nine.”
Five years. He’s had her for five years. She straightened, a cold realization icing her spine. Almost the same age as Ruby. Coincidence? Or
preference? “How did you meet her?”
“I… um.”
Sangare looked up. “Did you lure
her in some way?”
“No. Not really.”
He lured her. Great.
“It was… I can dreamwalk. It was
while she slept. In her dreams.”
She felt a souring in her
stomach, a feeling she thought she’d become numb to after years of defending
killers and rapists. An incubus stalked a
nine year old girl in her dreams. And I’m defending him. She continued in
her same mechanical tone, her expression showing nothing. “What happened? While
you were dreamwalking?”
“I saw her nightmares. They
weren’t like other children’s nightmares. I see those all the time. These were
something else.”
“What were they?”
“Hideous. Things that… I can’t
describe dream monsters, but they didn’t belong in a little girl’s head.”
“What did you do?”
“I got rid of them. First, just
one night.” He met her eyes. “I didn’t intend to come back. I didn’t speak to
her, she didn’t see me. I just… I felt bad for her. She was so scared. And
guilty.” He looked back at the table. “I know what that feels like.”
Don’t say that in the
courtroom. “But you did come back.”
“The monsters got worse. Every
night. So I came back and got rid of them. And then, all alone, she’d cry.” He
paused. “I felt bad. I knew I shouldn’t have approached her but… I felt bad.”
“At that point, did you use any
sort of magic on her?”
He drew a breath again and held
it, his shoulders rising. “Yes. I controlled her dreams. Made hers a part of
mine.”
Sangare set her teeth to keep
her face void. “What do you mean?”
“I can control my dreams. Go
anywhere, do anything. I took her places. Nice places. Place I’d seen in other
people’s dreams.”
“What sort of places?”
His head tilted, something
wistful coming over his monster face. “The beach. That was first. An apple orchard.
Somewhere far away with big trees and rivers and things—I don’t know what that
place is. The zoo. Places like that.”
“What did you do there?”
“We walked around. Played hide
and seek a lot. Swam in the water. Made sand castles. Rode an elephant a few times.”
It took Sangare a moment to
reply. She couldn’t picture this skeletal thing making sand castles, but it did
sound like the types of rewards other predators offered their young victims. “Had
you done this with any other children before Violet?”
“No.”
“Adults?”
“No.”
“Had you interacted with anyone
in dreams before this?”
He nodded. “Sometimes. I can see
other dreamwalkers. Other incubi. Sometimes vampires. Ghosts. I try to keep
humans away from them.”
Sangare blinked. All these things hunt humans in their sleep?
She knew she wouldn’t sleep at all that night. Or maybe any night. “How?”
He half-shrugged. “I turn into
someone they trust or something they like and lead them away.”
“You can do that?”
He nodded. “I can do anything in
dreamworld.” He said it as if it bored him.
“Anything?”
He nodded.
“Can you possess someone?”
He nodded again.
“Kill someone?”
He glanced quickly and didn’t
respond.
Mind control and murder. Two death penalty crimes. I’m sorry I asked.
“Back to Violet. Did she know what you were when you appeared to her?”
“No. For a while she thought I
was just another dream thing.”
“And when did that change?”
“One night she told me she
didn’t want to go home anymore. She wanted to stay in dreamworld with me.”
“Did she say why?”
“No, but I knew.”
“How did you know?”
“I could see her fears. Her
thoughts.”
Unlicensed mind reading. Life in prison. Just gets better and better.
“What was she afraid of?”
He almost answered, his thin,
dark lips parting, but stopped. “I told you. I can’t say.”
“When she said she didn’t want
to go home, then what happened?”
“I…” he shrunk inward again. “I
told her to come live with me.”
“Were you in Burgundy at that
time?”
“No. Chicago.”
“Where was she?”
“Chicago.”
A kidnapped Violet from Chicago five years ago. Can’t be many of those.
I won’t need her last name after all. “How did you get her?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t. I
told her how to come find me—I was in the lower quarter—and she did.”
“So you didn’t ever go to her
home?”
“No. I was—afraid to.”
“Why?”
“If they caught me,” he pulled
in further “I knew they’d lock me up.”
“Did you go to any of the
children’s homes?”
He shook his head.
“None of them?”
“No.”
“You told them how to find you?”
“Yes.”
If he was telling the truth, it
was the first glimmer of hope in his story. “What did that entail?”
“They’d get on a train or a bus.
I’d tell them how, where to go. Never very far.”
Looking down at the papers, pen
in hand, Sangare didn’t look at him or pause, hoping to catch him off-guard.
“What cities?”
“Violet was in Chicago. Theo was
in Minneapolis. Ruby was in Burgundy.”
“I see.” She set the pen down
and leaned in. “Dis, this is very important and I need you to tell me the
truth. Whatever you answer, I can develop a defense, but I can’t do it properly
if you lie. Do you understand?”
He pulled away, uncertain. “Tell
the truth about what?”
“Listen to me carefully: Did you
ever at any time, touch the girls or the boy in an inappropriate way?”
His red brows pulled down,
darkening his eyes. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
His eyes narrowed and he glared.
His gaze didn’t falter. “I have never done that.”
“Did any of the kids—the boy or
the girls—ever touch you in an inappropriate way?”
His glare hardened for a
moment—then broke. He blinked. “No. Never.”
Sangare almost sighed. My God, he’s so transparent. “Dis, are
you lying?”
“No.”
“I think you’re lying. Tell me
the truth or I can’t help you. Did you tell one of them—or all of them—to
perform a sexual act on you?”
“No!” Both clawed hands
screeched across the table. Sangare leaned back, the heat in the monster’s gaze
forcing her back like a billowing fire. Seeing her reaction, he moved back and
his voice evened. “I’m sorry. But it wasn’t like that. It really wasn’t. It
was, it was a misunderstanding.”
Sangare blinked. In the end, he really is another monster.
Another pedophile. She picked up her pen. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I can’t.”
Sangare frowned. Enough of this guilty charade. “Was it
Violet?”
He looked away.
Sangare studied him. But how can it be an act if he’s so terrible
at it? “What happened?”
“It was a misunderstanding,” he
muttered to the table. “She, she’s young. She’s—there are things that… she’s
gotten confused.”
“Ok,
let me explain. If you really didn’t molest them—as you say—you can undergo a
mind-reading and you can be cleared of all charges. This is your best possible
option if you are innocent of these crimes. However, if you agree to a reading
and you did molest them, you’re looking at a very long, very difficult sentence
and I can’t help you.”
He considered it a moment,
looking down at his hands. Then, he met her eyes. “I didn’t molest them.”
“Tell me what happened with
Violet,” she insisted.
He leaned back, pulling his
hands in again. “I’ve told her I love her. And I do. I know what love is,
whether you or anyone else believe me or not, and I love her.”
Sangare waited. That’s not an excuse. Or a defense.
“She said she loved me too. I, I
didn’t… when she said that…” he shook his head. “I knew I’d always protect her.
But I didn’t know...” He grimaced, struggling with the words.
Sangare blinked, feeling her
heart shrivel at the thought of defending another guilty man.
When he spoke again, his voice
was quiet. “She gets frightened at night sometimes. Still.” He paused. “I kept telling her she was too old to sleep in bed
with me. But then she’d lay awake and cry. I hate hearing her cry. I hate it.
I’d always say it was the last time, but…”
Sangare raised an eyebrow. “She
asked to sleep in bed with you?”
He nodded slowly. “I knew it
wasn’t right. When she was so young, though, it wasn’t… but she grew up so
fast. When she said she loved me I didn’t think…” He fell quiet.
“What happened?”
“She came into my room again,
said she was scared. I tried to say no, but…” He shook his head.
“Dis. What happened?”
“I… she kissed me. On the mouth.
It seemed odd, but… I don’t know.”
“Ok, she kissed you.” He kissed her. “Then what?”
“I turned away, but she was
close, very close. She, um, reached for me.”
Sangare blinked. “What do you
mean?”
“Um. Not in a way that, not in a
way that was really, I guess, appropriate.”
She nodded. “Ok, so it was
sexual?” How would a fourteen year old get
an idea like that? It was a hard story to believe. It would be harder for a
jury.
He was quiet. “I guess so.”
“How long did that go on?”
“I was surprised. Shocked. I
pushed her away and told her to go back to her room.”
Sangare didn’t believe it. “How
did you feel? When she touched you?”
He whispered something. Sangare
leaned in. “What?”
“Disgusting,” he said quietly.
She sat back. She believed he
felt guilty about whatever had really happened, but guilty because it was
inappropriate or guilty because he enjoyed it? It was difficult to say. She
wasn’t sure he knew.
“I tried to explain,” he went on
softly. “What was ok and what wasn’t. But she… I… I got angry with her.” His
shoulders pulled in again, shrinking into himself. “I wish I wouldn’t have.”
“Did you hit her? When you got
angry?”
He shook his head. “No, I’d
never hit her. I just, I should’ve explained. She needed that, but I didn’t know how.”
Sangare tilted her head,
watching his downcast face. “So, she kissed you, touched you, you told her to
leave, then you got angry, is that right?”
He nodded.
“What made you angry? Something
she said? Or did?” Or didn’t do?
It took him a long moment. Sangare
waited in the heavy silence. “She said I could hurt her if I wanted. Said
she’d let me do it. Or she’d fight me. Whatever I 'liked'. She knew what I
was, but I didn’t think…” One clawed hand covered his forehead. He got quiet
and, even in the silence, Sangare scarcely heard him. “That she thought that of
me… I felt so fucking ugly.”
She watched the creature, his
long, looming form scrunched, trying to hide his nightmarish face. Either he
was a great liar or a terrible one, but it couldn’t be both. And if he was a
great liar, why tell the story at all? Why admit to anything? She found herself
on a strange, risky precipice. She was close to believing a monster.
There was just one question
left. “Dis,” she said, after a considering silence, “she’s fourteen years old.
Why would she act that way towards you? Where would she get that idea?”
His hands fell back to the
table, knife-tip claws balanced on the metal. His soft voice turned suddenly
dark. Dangerous. “She got the idea long before me.”
She could barely see his black
eyes staring at the table, but she saw the hate in them. “Was it her father?
That abused her?”
He glanced up quickly, eyes
narrow. Then he looked away. “I can’t say.”
Silence filled the room again.
She thought the incubus might speak, might confirm her suspicions with more
than a look. When he didn’t, she asked, “Is her father still alive?”
He looked at the wall. “No.”
“Did you kill him?”
He scratched at the gouges in
the metal table again. “Yes.” His claws slipped into the holes like nails in a
board. “I didn’t mean to.” He took a breath and held it. “But I wanted to.”
“How did you kill him?”
He fell deadly still. “I haunted
him. I terrorized him. In his sleep.”
She shook her head slowly.
“Terrorized how?”
“Nightmares.” A snarl slipped over his lips and Sangare
saw his needle teeth clenched. “Sometimes I’d hurt him. Not only fear, but
pain, real pain. When she’d cry… then I’d hurt him.”
Sangare swallowed, struggling to
keep fear from showing on her face. “What did you do to hurt him?”
The snarl faded and his gaze
dropped to his hands. “I ripped his skin off once. More than once.” He paused.
“When I made the nightmare, he wouldn’t die unless I let him. So he just felt
pain.”
“What made you finally kill him?”
“I didn’t. He shot himself.”
Didn’t he say his mother killed herself too? “Dis, tell me the
truth—have you haunted other people?”
Slowly, he confessed a nod.
“People close to the kids?”
He nodded again.
“People close to you?”
He gave a soft sigh. “They’re
the only ones close to me.”
“Have you killed other people?
Or have the people you’ve haunted killed themselves?”
“No. And I didn’t mean to kill
him.”
Sangare leaned in, studying him
closely. “Is that the truth?”
He nodded and frowned, his thin,
dark red lips pulling down like melting wax. “She told me not to.” He pulled
his hands in and scrunched. “I am—ashamed of that. What I did to him. It really
was monstrous.” He looked up without moving his head, unwilling to uncurl from
his shrinking state. “I am a criminal. I have done terrible things. But I
didn’t do what they say I did.”
