said Madman, nodding in an almost normal manner. "All right, I'll go with you. I think I've been lying here for months, thinking about things, and I'm almost sure I'm bored. Yes, I'll go with you. I'm always looking for something to distract me. To keep my mind occupied, so it won't go wandering off in ... unfortunate directions. I'm more scared of me than you'll ever be. Let's go."

He swung down off the bed, his movements strangely unconnected. Standing up, he was almost as tall as I, but he seemed much heavier, as though he weighed more heavily on the world. The shadows in the corners had retreated, for the moment. Madman headed for the door, and I followed him out of the room, carefully not looking back. His sound track was playing something jazzy, heavy on the saxophone. As I closed the door, I glanced back into the room, just for a moment. It was a small, pokey room, dark and dirty and thick with dust and cobwebs. Clearly it hadn't been used in years. Something was lying on the bed. It started to sit up, and I shut the door firmly and stepped back. Madman was looking at me patiently, so I led the way to the stairs and down into the lobby. People saw us step out into the lobby and scurried to get out of our way. And so together, Madman and I went out into the Nightside in search of the man called Sinner.

Sinner was another man whose story was well-known in the Nightside, which collects legends and tragedies the way a dog has fleas. Nothing is known about Sinner's early life, but at some point the man who would be known as Sinner made the decision to sell his soul to the Devil. So he studied the subject carefully, made all the correct preparations, and called Satan up out of the Pit. Not one of his demons, or even a fallen angel, but the Ancient Enemy himself. History and literature are full of stories showing why this is always a really bad idea, but Sinner apparently believed he knew what he was doing. He called up the Devil, bound it to a pleasant form, then said he wanted to sell his soul. And when the Devil asked Sinner what he wanted in return, the man said, True love. The Devil was somewhat taken aback by this, and apparently remarked that True love wasn't really his line of business. But the man insisted, and a deal is a deal, so ... The contract was signed in blood, and in return for his immortal soul, the man was promised ten years with the woman of his dreams.

The Devil said, Go to this bar, at this time, and she will be waiting for you. Then he laughed, and disappeared. The man went to the bar at the appointed time and did indeed meet the woman of his dreams. He fell in love with her, and she with him, and soon they were married. They enjoyed ten very happy years together, then, when the ten years were up, the Devil rose up on the last stroke of midnight, to claim the man's soul, and drag it down to Hell. The man nodded, and said; It was worth it, to know True love. And the Devil said, It was all a lie. The woman was just a demon, one of mine, a succubus who only pretended to care for you, as she has cared for so many men before you. The man said, It doesn't matter. I loved her, and always will. The Devil shrugged, and took the man away.

And so the man became the only soul in Hell who still loved. Despite what he knew, despite everything that was done to him; defiantly and stubbornly, he still loved. The Devil couldn't have that; it was corrupting the atmosphere. So in the end he had no choice but to throw the man out of Hell and back into the land of the living. And Heaven wouldn't take the man, because, after all, he'd made a deal with the Devil. So the man came to the Nightside, to walk its neon streets forever, neither properly living nor dead, denied by Heaven and by Hell. The man called Sinner.

He was an amiable enough sort, but most people kept well clear of him. Because he wasn't really alive, he cast no shadow, and because he couldn't die again, he was pretty