The Universe's Mixer

Lestat sat on his balcony, watching the City.

His eyes shone in the failing light, but his body was utterly still. He watched passersby in the early evening air, one eyebrow raised, a distant expression on his face.

He was growing tired of loss.

Lestat's time in the City was not short. He had, he knew, been here for six or seven years. He could not be fully certain; it wasn't as though he'd ticked off marks on his wall or anything like that.

But it was growing.

He looked to the people that he found interesting to keep him both entertained and on the wagon, so to speak. When those people could not be found, Lestat grew more and more upset with his circumstances.

He felt toyed with.

It occurred to him the previous evening that he had not seen his pseudo-grandson in a while. Logan. So he'd reached for him, looked for him.

And Logan was gone.

Well, then, Lestat reasoned, Veronica, his bright girlfriend, she should be very easy to find, very easy to hear over the din of minds in this place.

And Veronica was gone, too.

In a corner of his heart that was full of cobwebs and reserved for romantic notions, Lestat hoped that they'd ended up back in the same place again, together. But he could not know that was a true thing, and he'd lost two more people that he found worthwhile.

He did not like being at the mercy of this place.

And so, he felt feverishly among the minds of the people passing below for someone interesting.

A distraction. Someone to make him not care that he didn't seem to have a way out, while so many others did.

Mrs. Portello was screaming. It wasn't the reaction Maxine had been expecting and the little girl was shocked into a stupor by the grown up's hysterics. It took exactly three seconds for the kindergarten teacher's panic to infect the other small children, most of whom started crying. Many of them ran behind the trusted teacher for protection.

Maxine wasn't the only student in a daze, there were two others. Christi was also very quiet, staring back at Maxine in awe. Rex had his hands on his head, only vaguely aware that the head he was feeling was no longer a human one but that of a very large duck. His fingers were on the bill, reaching into his mouth, trying to find his real face underneath to no avail.

He'd called Christi stupid. He'd made her cry. When Maxine told him to stop he laughed. He said if Christi wasn't so stupid she would do something beside pick her nose and cry. Maxine had told him Christi hadn't picked her nose, but by then the rumor started to spread and the other children were laughing which made Christi cry even harder.

Then, instead of continuing to taunt Christi, he began to quack.

Maxine had given him a duck head.

And that'e when Mrs. Portello started screaming.

One of the teachers from next door rushed into the room, she was equally terrified of seeing a boy with a duck's head. It wasn't until a third teacher entered the room and asked what happened and fifteen tiny hands all pointed at Maxine, that the teacher faked enough calm to tell Maxine to go to the principal's office.

The teachers were terrified of her.

Maxine waited on an uncomfortable wood bench outside Principal Crisp's office. They'd tried calling the guardians listed on Maxine's file. Not even Principal Crisp wanted to handle the super powered child until another adult was present.