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grabbed a bar wrapped in brown paper and foil, then slid it onto the counter next to the cloves. Tossing down the cash, he took the bag from the clerk’s hand, nodding a farewell before heading out the door, blinking at the tears in his eyes.
    Cutting through the parking lot, Kismet turned into the alley behind the store, Chase’s singsong chant of chocolate echoing in his ears. The blue roof of his motel poked out coyly above the squat buildings nearby, the sky hue vibrant amid the gray. As he approached the motel, Chase’s voice softened before falling away, hiding from the light.
    A lean form huddled against one of the dumpsters at the side of the motel, the battered hunter green metal providing little shelter from the elements. Her tobacco-tinted hair a tangled mess around her worn face, the woman blearily looked up from picking at her fingernails, the cuticles raw and bleeding.
    Black stumps poked up from her gums, teeth rotten down into the root. She waved out a bony hand, sun-dried fingers stained sienna from cigarettes, her gaze dropping to the pavement. Kismet stepped in close, crouching at the woman’s side, placing a five-dollar bill in her outstretched palm.
    “Hey, Lucy.” He spoke softly. Kismet kept his breathing low, trying not to pull the stink of her unwashed body into his nose. Dried urine caked dirt at her crotch, the stale clotted grease of human skin rank in his throat. She was a familiar sight. He hurt every time he saw her.
    The woman raised her face, weathered and beaten skin stretched thin over her blunt facial bones. There was nothing left of the laughing beauty who had slipped him money for a hamburger or candy, one of his mother’s many casual friends who were quick to baby the pretty-faced boy running wild among them. Now she just looked wrinkled and parched dry of life.
    “Kizzie!” she exclaimed, her breath fouled by the drugs eating off the enamel on her teeth. Lucy patted the damp ground beside her, more comfortable sitting in a garbage-strewn alley than most women would be in a fine parlor. “Sit down. You shouldn’t give me money. Keep it. You need it more.”
    “I got some ink done today. I’ve got enough,” he murmured. She’d given him a place to crash when he’d first been turned out by one of his mother’s lovers. Money was the least he could give the broken woman sitting at his feet.
    With her face turned up to him, Kismet spotted the writhing black tadpoles eating away at the sores in her skin. Without anything in his system, he saw the shapes clearly, vicious chewing shadows wiggling to pull bits of her flesh into wide, razor-lined mouths. They consumed her sanity; Kismet was sure of it. One in particular nearly pushed in through her cornea, its head enveloped by the clear membrane. Kismet cracked open the fortified wine nearly hidden in the sack, took a hefty swig, then passed it to Lucy, his teeth worrying at his lower lip.
    “You’re not taking your meds, Luce.” Kismet swallowed the mouthful, grunting at the burn of his soft throat tissues. “You know you have to.”
    “They make me… crazy, Kizzie.” Lucy held the bottle with both hands, trembling as she raised it to her mouth. Widening her jaw, she splashed a dollop into her gullet, not touching the mouth of the bottle to her lips. “I can’t think when I’ve got one of those things in me.”
    “Lucy, you have to take them. And you’re supposed to keep taking them until your body gets used to them. You just can’t stop because you’re feeling better.” Kismet helped Lucy take another swig, holding the end of the vessel before taking it back, filling his mouth with the numbing liquid. “Stay still. I’ve got to get this crap off of you.”
    When he was young, he’d watched the small shadows eating away at his mother’s breasts, slithering trails of eyeless creatures working under her skin until nothing remained but very real pocked scars and a burned blemish on her pale flesh. Over the years,