Banjo, acoustic, car keys, Spirits, spliffs, knife, bomber jacket. He was ready to go. To his relief Ebeneezer the Clunker was generous today, only taking two revs before starting. He peeled out of the development at a brisk 20mph (or so the only slightly broken speedometer told him).

Ten minutes later he was in Oldtown parking next to a truly decrepit Victorian townhouse on Long Avenue. He slung his instruments and walked into the squat. The band, Pyrrhic Defeat, was popular enough that everyone could support themselves just fine on part time jobs and subsidized/squatted housing, but Clarence never felt like he was allowed to live here with his mostly lesbian bandmates.

Mouse welcomed him with a surprise hug in the foyer. "Carie! Good to see you man." The spritely drummer nearly bowled him over with faer jubulent excitement over no longer being the only non-girl in the house.

Clarence knew exactly how to deal with the mischievous little weirdo. He scooped him up and twirled around. "Hows it going imp!" They laughed together.

"Well well well look who's only 5 minutes late." Natasha rubbed her eyes as she greeted Clarence. "Carie, haven't y'ever heard of punk time?" Natasha's willowy frame and Blueridge accent gave her an ethereal quality on stage, belting out the spooky ballads they were known for. "Yer supposed to be an hour late, everyone's asleep."

Clarence raised an eyebrow. "That kinda night?"

"Yuuuup." Mouse chortled.

Clarence sighed. "Damn I with I had come, too bad I had a date."

Natasha chuckled escorting them to what passed for the living room. "How did miss Jane Daniel's appreciate yer company?"

Clarence licked his lips "Marvelously." Mouse raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Natasha smiled sweetly, and materialized a mason jar out of her flowy dress as she sat of the worn and weathered leather couch. "Hooch of the dog?"

Putting down his instruments and cracking his back Clarence sat down next to Natasha. "Please."

"C'mon." Mouse said seriously. moving to lean on the coffee table so faer eyes were level with the two giants sitting down. "You said you were going to cut back."

Clarence looked at mouse awkwardly, hunching over he held up a finger in his defense "Yeah but, that was when I was significantly less in the hole then I am now."

Natasha leaned back and frowned "Aren't y'supposed to cut back when you're havin' a bad time?" She studied the wall as if reading from a list of pro-drinking tips grafittied there."Makes it more habit formin'... or somethin'."

Clarence coughed holding up his hands defensively. "Look I'm holding down an existential crisis here." He tried and failed to make himself even smaller then he already was. At that moment he was envious of Mouses ethereal smallness.

Mouse wrinkled faer nose in confusion. "Yeah?"

"Ok, so you know how I was having those really bad headaches the past two weeks?" Clarence said weakly.

Natasha nodded "Yeah."

He had collapsed during band practice once and the gang had pried it out of him, kicking and screaming all the way. 'We're worried about you Carie.' 'Maybe it would be easier if you talked to someone about your problems Clarance?' 'Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?' 'We can put the new album on hold for a bit so you can resolve this stuff, you know?' Master manipulators and devious tricksters the lot of 'em.

"Well I woke up from a weird dream with a nose bleed, today." The words kinda just tumbled out. Clarence could trust his friends. He looked up at Mouse and Natasha's suddenly worried gaze. "But the thing is, I tried to move my razor with my mind..." The worried looks grew deeper, and He realized that maybe he had revealed too much. Too late now. "And honest to god bled from my eyes, but I think did it."

Mouse tilted faer head and stood up. "You think?"

"Well when I woke up it was in pieces." Clarence said with a terrified smile.

"You passed out?!" Natasha shouted. Leaping off the couch, she paced towards the kitchen then spun on her heels and walked back to sit on the armrest closest to her all the while thundering on. "Oh my lord he fuckin' passed out." "Jesus, he goddamn blacked out!"

"It was smashed? Like more then if it had just hit the floor?" Fae asked over Natasha, bounding onto the empty spot left by her worrying.

Clarence winced by the effect he was clearly having on his friends. "More like... if it was stopped on."

Natasha stopped. She and Mouse looked at each other.

"Also," Clarence continued "have you noticed my eyes have changed color?"

Mouse leaped forward to grab Clarence's face and stared directly into his eyes. "Holy shit." Fae murmured. "This might be the real deal."

Natasha shifted uncomfortably on her armrest. "Y'sure its not, like, a brain tumor, or psychosis, or some shit like that?"

Mouse dragged Clarence's face over to Natasha. He didn't bother putting up a fight. "No! Look at his eyes!!" Fae said excitedly.

Natasha looked, and then looked down at the rest of Clarence. "Mouse... look how androgynous Carie looks today." She looked at the carpet. "I was trying to get you drunk to see if I couldn't pry into if you started estrogen or something, but...."

Mouse slid faer gaze across Clarence's body. Fae bit faer lip. "What the fuck is going on?" Fae turned to Natasha. "You're right of course. I can't believe I didn't see it."

Natasha put her head in her hands. "You're the fucking occultist, what's you're prognosis?"

Mouse grimaced. "ESP research overlaps with occultism, but its boooring!" Fae stood up on the couch holding forth as if in sermon. "It's just the US and the USSR racing to see who can design the best Extra Sensory Superweapon to present to UN unified command, and both failing because ESP isn't... real." Mouse faltered looking at Clarence. "Unless our friend is telling the truth in which case, because they couldn't figure it out."

Natasha raised an eyebrow "So you're saying our little Carie," Clarence could feel himself blushing at this. "Worked out, on his own, what Russia and America spent decades on but couldn't?" She laughed "Sounds about right."

Mouse raised a finger while rifling through fear fanny pack. "For this to be scientific we need repeatable results." Not finding what fae were looking for, fae hopped off the couch and scurried over to the debris pile fae referred to as a bedroom.

While they were waiting on their bandmate's return Clarence leaned over to Natasha. "Do you really think this is real and I'm not crazy?" He asked both hopeful and terrified.

The singer was silent for a while. "I can't deny the physical changes to you, but it could've been accomplished with a month of estrogen and colored contacts." She leaned over and put her arm on his shoulder and spoke into his ear. "Frankly I don't think you have the balls to take estrogen for a prank, so unless you have something to tell me..." She pulled away giving Clarence a deeply meaningful look. "...I have no choice but to take you at your word."

The heat radiating from Clarence's ears could power a steam engine. "Wha-" He frowned. "For the last time Natasha, I'm cis-"

Mouse bounded back into the room holding a set of hollow plastic juggling balls. "Carie you look like a femboy," Fae made a pinching motion. "you are this close to losing your cis card." Ignoring Clarence's pout, fae dumped the balls on the coffee table. "Now be a good little boy and lay down on the couch for your parents."

Natasha got up to make room as Clarence laid back on the couch making angry noises. "Why do you want me to lay down?" He crossed his arms over his chest as if he was in one of those unfunny Newyorker therapy cartoons his grandma sent him. "...Besides insult my apparently dwindling masculinity."

Mouse smiled down at him. "I'm going to drop balls on your head!"

"Oh." Clarence said. "How thoughtful of you."

Natasha leaned over to stage whisper in Mouse's ear. "How's that gonna to help?"

Mouse picked up the first ball. "Its standard operating procedure, we drop em, Carie tries to stop em from hitting his face." Mouse pointed at the blue glossy ball fae were holding. "He stops em, we know he's got Psyonic powers." Fae points at faer forehead. "if he doesn't he has to do band practice with a red welt on his head."

Natasha reached out a hand and Mouse shook it "Deal."

Clarence rolled his eyes. "You gonna ask me?

"No." They said in unison.

~~+-0-+~~

Roy and Kovech walked into the boss's office. Not making eye contact, no small talk either. The boss said "Welcome boys, have a seat." like clockwork. Like clockwork they sat. The boss tried not to frown at them. "Despite everything, you two are our best team for weird cases." Kovech corrected this in his mind: "best team at cases where there are no witnesses to pin stuff on."

Roy gave a bloodless "Thank you." Kovech said nothing.

The boss cleared his throat. "You're welcome." For all the authority his corner office provided, he looked sweaty and slightly flustered, as if he had just successfully fended off a disciplinary meeting. He grabbed a file off his desk and handed it to Roy. Roy didn't open it, and instead handed it to Kovech. The boss sighed, and moved on. "I know you're both busy, but just take a look at this." He said with defeat.

Kovech flipped open the file and read aloud. "Remmy Jones, 32, was found dead in his apartment with no visible injuries, but blood trails coming from every orifice..." He stopped, frowning. He looked at Roy for the first time since they had been called to the office. Roy raised am eyebrow. The rough manila in Kovech's hands trembled slightly. "No unlocked doors or windows." Kovech felt a wave of equal disgust and thrill. A locked room mystery... This was the shit he signed up for, not gunning down kids and chasing dead ends! ...With a body at the end of it. The bile stung his throat.

Roy motioned for Kovech to continue, so he turned the page. "Autopsy reveals no evidence of struggle or fatal injury." Kovech looked at Roy, horrified. "Except brain trauma inexplicable by stroke or hemorrhage."

Roy cocked his head. "You sure we can't chock this up to a particularity bad hemorrhage?" Kovech double checked the autopsy notes.

The boss grunted. "Autopsy department's all in a fluster 'bout it." He ran a hand through his curly gray hair. "Insisted we send investigate criminal intent." Kovech fished a picture out from the notes and stared at it.

Roy frowned "But... why? Isn't it obviously some rare medical condition?"

Kovech cleared his throat. Passed the picture over. Roy looked at it. Raised both eyebrows. He rubbed his chin, and handed it back to Kovech.

The picture showed a brain that had been squeezed until it popped.

"Parasite?" Roy asked, not wanting this to be their problem.

"Couldn't find one big enough in the body, and there were no exit wounds or internal damage." The boss replied.

Kovech allowed himself to think. The murder defied any pattern he had seen before. It led to wild thouhts- Aliens? A new super weapon? ESP? Best to ask the experts "Do the autopsy guys have any ideas beyond, you know, this being something for us to look at?"

The boss grimaced. "When he died he was trying to write something down." Kovech flipped to the forensic report. The notepad was covered in blood, but charcoal rubbing a lower page gave...

"Seventy-six point..." Kovech read, he squinted at the last character. "And then a squiggle where he tried to write more but his brain was chunky ketchup." He flinched. Maybe a little too raunchy for the boss's office.

The boss glared, but Roy chuckled at least. Kovech grinned back at his partner. "That's less then a quarter of a clue." Roy said, letting his temporary smile flip back to neural mask.

Kovech looked at the rubbing again. "It's written very sloppy, so assuming he has okay handwriting, he was rushing or already dying while he wrote this."

Roy looked up. "Hmm... Well at least we know it's probably related to his death?" He turned to the Boss "Are we calling this a murder?" The boss nodded. Roy tapped his armrest. "How long until we call the FBI?"

The boss leaned back closing his eyes. "You have two days." He let out a nicotine stained breath, and pawed his mustache. "We don't want to give the feds a cold case."

Roy looked over at Kovech, who nodded in silent agreement. The usual two pronged approach. No fucking around. Most of their current caseload was already cold, and could stand a two days on the back burner. It was time to fully commit to this weird murder.

It was only later in the day, while he was taking his mid afternoon shit, and contemplating his second empty flask, did he think to read up on the actual details of US and USSR ESP research. By the time he was driving home, he was fairly certain he knew it was the murder weapon.