An ally somewhere in Las Vegas, Nevada….

Goodie stumbled in the dark, looking for a place to sit and rest. Never mind the dirty smell of alcohol, sex and urine. She just needed to lie down for a little….then everything would be all right. Death couldn’t be worse than her life…she was a prostitute trying to make it as a showgirl, but always being turned down at auditions. She wasn’t small enough, or, after days of starving herself, she was too thin.

The brutal Mojave sun had sunk beneath the baked horizon and allowed the cool night air of the desert to relieve Nevada’s inhabitants. This was the oasis in the desert. An oasis of pleasure and pain, and the murder of all things sacred.

She made the decision to pop pills for death after she was turned down at another audition. It was the proverbial “last straw.” From high school graduation things had gone down hill, the last 12 years had been a series of mistakes. Only one thing had come from it: Emily, her eleven-year-old daughter. Emily was smart, pretty and perfect—everything that Goodie had been. The darkest of brown eyes that seemed to have been made to see everything, they were wide too that’s what Goodie loved most about their eyes. They both had pouting lips and high cheekbones and they were both slender creatures. The pride however rested with their dark red hair, almost auburn. But Goodie was getting old and worn out with every john had.

Emily would be better off without her. Who needs a manic-depressive, semi-abusive, show girl- wannabe prostitute mother?

She cried for all the mean things she’d ever done or said to Emily, which was most of everything she’d ever said. Sometimes Emily would cry when she saw Goodie putting on her micro-min skirt and platform stilettos. She knew what job “uniform” that was. Goodie would get angry at her daughter’s accusing tears.

If she could go back and do it all over, she would have gone straight to college. She never should have gone to that party. She should have taken her grandparents’ advice and “left those boys alone.” But Goodie had been divided between brains and beauty. She had chosen beauty—beauty that never lasts. Beauty that she took advantage of and used up. A well, gone dry. “No more wishes for you.” That’s what it’d say.

So here she was, losing what was left of her mind to lithium. She felt funny as she sat up and looked at the pale night sky. She couldn’t see the stars; she hadn’t seen them in ten years. The desert drew her in with the promise of hiding her shame. And now she was dying in its bowels. She laughed at the starless sky and to the invisible eternity that was closing in on her. Goodie swore that she heard the Devil’s voice. “Come now.”

“Never! I’m not yours anymore!”

“You will dance for me in hell. Your daughter, she will dance for me too one day.”

Goodie laughed and choked on the crimson death passing from her lips. It’s too late. What have I done? “Emily,” she whispered. With her last breath, Goodie said something to her daughter that she should have said years ago.

“I’m so sorry.”

A/N: Emily is orphaned at eleven and grows up admiring her dead mother's friend, Daniel the magician. She's grown into an enticing young woman and becomes possessive of her male guardian and decides that no one will stop her when it comes to getting what she wants. She will go to any extent, even murder, to keep the magician for herself.

...Daniel has two choices: give into the tempting beauty of his deceased friend's daughter or will Vegas make him bend to his desires. There may be no way for him to magic himself out of this. He may wind up dead.