The woman grabbed me by the ear, dragged me to a chair, and cuffed me to one of those shackle bars.

"What were you before you had sex?" I asked the woman. "Mister Toad?"

The woman slapped me.

I didn't know my own hand had turned animated until she shackled me to the bar with one of those cuffs Misty used to trap birds with, the ones with the unfunny jokes inside.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Why were you naked at that hotel?"

I sighed. "Flashing an ex girlfriend I met on Okcupid."

"That's not what the security cameras showed. You came in from the roof."

"Mile high club. We do parachutes."

"We didn't find one of those either."

"My girlfriend..."

The woman sat back. "Okay. Now we're getting somewhere."

She slid a glossy photo of Nightbreed Cupcake across the desk. "Is this your partner?"

I frowned. They had her in a prison cell, chained half naked to a wall.

The weird thing was, she had posed like some kind of centerfold model, directing my attention to her wares. "You seem to know all the answers already."

"Would you like for us to dissect her now, or later?"

I swallowed hard. "Look. I'll answer any questions you want, but so far you aren't asking me anything you can't figure out yourself."

"What did you do with Mr. Kanifkey?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

My interrogator rolled her eyes, slapped a photo of the cartoon shoes from Jessica's car on the table. "Mr. Deebes, you'd be surprised what I'll believe...Where are the explosives?"

I furrowed my brow. "What explosives?"

The woman picked up the picture of Jessica, which, despite being the same photo, now showed the bird with her legs closed, one eye winking.

My interrogator tore a small rip in the top of the glossy 8X10. "I'm not in the mood for games, Mr. Deebes. Something clearly blew open an entire section of that hotel. Where are the explosives?"

"Listen, lady-"

"It's Officer Jenkins to you."

"Officer Jenkins. Did you find any evidence of explosives?"

She looked...skeptical. "What else could have caused an entire wall to blow out like that?"

"A cartoon mouse sneezed Mr. Kanifkey through a wall."

She stared at me, apparently not believing.

"That's the god's honest truth. He sneezed."

She paused a long time, fixing me with an incredulous stare.

At last she showed me a picture of loincloth wearing Sneezer. "This guy?"

A cartoon heart popped out of my orange jumpsuit. "Yeah. That's him."

"Well, that does explain the lack of chemical residue...where is your father?"

"He's in Cool World."

She blinked like a toad. "What is that."

"It's where all the cartoons live."

"How do we get there?"

I sighed. "I don't know anymore. Someone appears to have shut the power off."

Another long pause.

"My dad and I don't hang out. I have no clue where he is."

She looked skeptical now. "I see."

She showed me photographs of the Sky Stations at Bartle Hall, and the shattered top portion of the KCPL building. "Recognize this? You did a lot of damage to this place. My question to you is how."

"These things tend to happen when you fight a supervillain."

She pulled out closeups of the alien machinery. "And what are these?"

"Hell if I know! The alien we were fighting, she put them in there a long time ago. That's all I can tell you."

Jenkins narrowed her eyes. "And where is this `supervillain now."

"She committed suicide."

"How very convenient...a witness saw you fall through the ceiling of a car show and break both your legs. How are you walking?"

"Mind over matter."

She looked like she'd just smelled a fart, but didn't ask for further explanation. "Is that how you control the birds?"

"You mean now, or when they almost took over the world?"

The woman looked like she believed me responsible for all of it. "Both."

"No. That thing...at the hotel...that was a...usurper, who stole the bird queen's power. She had a staff, which we broke."

Jenkins took the pieces out of a suitcase, dropping it on the table. "Show me."

"I can't. It's broken. The magic is gone."

She threatened me with a picture of Jessica again. Incidentally, Jessica had her wings spread now, proudly displaying her tail feathers. I furrowed my brow, silently mouthing that I didn't understand. The photo glared at me, rolled her eyes.

"What are you doing to her?" I asked.

"Doing, Mr. Deebes? Nothing. Whether that changes is up to you. How do we work this...bird staff?"

"Like I said, you don't! It's broken! B-R-O-K-E-N!"

She crossed her arms like she didn't believe me.

"Okay. I have a ring."

She placed my signet ring on the table. "This, you mean."

"Yeah, but I'd need an animated bird for it to be any good."

"So it doesn't work on regular ones."

"Not that I know about."

"Why did you murder all those people?"

I swallowed. "Hey! That wasn't my fault! My...enemy was turning people into birds and dropping them off buildings."

"Right. The enemy in your head."

I slumped in my chair. "You're right. Why do I even care what the hell you think? It doesn't change the truth."

"The truth that you did it."

"Screw you. I thought you wanted answers, not more made up excuses to put me in jail."

Jenkins looked like she were about to ribbit. "Do you know the woman from the first incident? The one in 1992?"

"We've met."

"How did she do what she did?"

"Uh...pulling a spike out of the sign?"

She sighed through her nostrils. "How did you transform your next door neighbor into a bird?"

"Mrs. Featherstone you mean? I told you, that was the usurper!"

"That's not what she said. She told me you borrowed her phone, and in return you transformed her into a bird."

"There are worse things-" Remembering the deaths, I stopped myself. "I don't know how to fix that stick. You probably have to say a magic spell and pour dwarf star alloy all over it or something. I'd fix it if I knew how."

"A woman named Dane Gatson is missing. You were last seen with her. Ring any bells?"

"In a floating jukebox. Don't ask me where. She went off on her own, along with her boyfriend Greg."

"Greg Cupertino, also missing."

"Floating jukebox," I repeated.

She showed me a blurry photograph of the object in question. "You're referring to this, correct? Can you bring it to us?"

I shrugged. "No, not now. I need my birds."

She walked out of the room with her photos and objects, leaving me alone with the blank gray walls and the one way mirror.

I thought back to Jessica-Cupcake's photograph, those panty shots that had burned themselves into my retinas.

My horny brain hadn't registered it at the time, but there had been actual messages on her underwear, spelling out things like a Shirt Tales character.

`Cell 418,' her bra had said, and between her legs, `Skeleton key?'

The second time I looked, the message read, `Wait til 4 P.M.'

In the picture where she unfurled her wings and closed her legs, her bra read, `Bring pencil,' and her feathers framed a message scrawled on the concrete: `Blackout.'

Even the last one, the one where she got frustrated at my stupidity, she gave me a final message: `Have Extra' and on her panties, `Here.'

I glanced at the clock. 3:50.

The skeleton key was in my pocket, but how was I supposed to reach in there and get it out? No amount of funny-funny allowed me to pull my hands free.

I resorted to climbing up on the table, throwing my legs over the bar, butt against the object as I dug in my pockets.

Once I had the key, I slipped it under my palms and hid it there, anxiously watching the clock.