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he grabbed the pole of a street sign and spun around it. “Oh, that’s easy. You think too much. That’s from Nigel, always looking for motives and such. Everyone knows how he is, so everyone acts like him when he’s around. Getting sucked up in his world is part of his world. He needs to get laid.”
    Flits have a voracious appetite when it comes to sex. “That’s not the answer to everything, you know,” I said.
    He waggled his eyebrows at me. “It’s the answer to enough things to make it worthwhile.”
    “Not for me anymore.”
    He landed on a destroyed telephone box. “Connor, you’ve changed. What happened to that guy who used to have fun?”
    I had changed. Once, I would have brushed off the snubs and the drama and gone on my way. The difference was back then I could afford to. I had money, power, and influence. With any one of those things, life was easier. Once they were all gone, I realized not everyone lived like that—more, that most people never had a chance to live like that precisely because of the people who lived like that. It didn’t have to be that way. It made me angry often and, yeah, depressed, but I didn’t think I wasn’t fun to be around.
    “Am I really no fun anymore?”
    “Only when you’re awake,” said Joe, then grinned from ear to ear. He started wringing his hands. “Oh, woe is me! The world is so awful. People die, and everything is shite, and it’s all my fault.”
    I glared at him. “Not funny.”
    He hovered up and snapped his fingers in my face. “No kidding. You know what’s going on other places? People are nervous and scared and looking for comfort. And you know what happens next? Lots of sex and alcohol, and you’re moping around like a schoolboy on a date with his hand.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Wow. I can’t believe you’d take advantage like that, Joe. That’s a new low even for you.”
    He pulled his chin in. “Me? I tell them I’m nervous and scared. You would not believe the action I’ve been getting.”
    I laughed, not just because it was funny but because he was that serious, which made it funnier. “Somewhere along the way, the world went seriously wrong.”
    He sighed. “Again with the everything-is-wrong.”
    Exasperated, I spread out my hands. “All right, all right, I get the message. I’m no fun. I complain. I’m a pessimist. No one likes to be around me. I get it already.”
    Joe looked at me with a solemn face. “Boy, do you have a self-esteem problem.”
    Laughing, I batted at him, but he flitted away. “I can’t win with you.”
    He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Is that an invitation to poker?”
    I shook my head in defeat. “You win. Where to?”
    He flapped his wings and spun in a circle. “Oh, the places we’ll go!”
    He zipped ahead of me on the sidewalk. Sometimes, having Joe as a friend was worth doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.

5
    In a booth halfway to the back of the Rose Rose the next day, I nursed a mug of coffee. Somehow, despite all the riot mess that had happened right around the corner on Old Northern Avenue, the old bar and grill hadn’t been damaged. Having one thing in my life remain the same was small comfort, but I took it where I could.
    Midday in the Weird was the start of the day in the neighborhood. The only people showing energy were the waitstaff as they hustled late breakfast specials to customers making a grudging attempt to face the day. I sensed Murdock enter behind me, his body signature an unmistakable combination of druid and human. He hung his coat on a peg and slid into the booth. “Is it bright in here?”
    I took my sunglasses off. “I had a long night.”
    Murdock sipped a soda I had ordered for him. “Were you looking into those essence surges?”
    “For a while. I met up with Joe later, had a few beers.”
    Murdock seemed off, distracted, as he skimmed the menu. “I wanted to talk to you about something. Bernard is going to run for city council in the