The Universe's Mixer

Running into a version of the girl he'd brutally killed had given him a strange new insight into life. The fact that she now knew that he'd done it, and had for some reason spared him - he could only guess that his words about Evey had been the saving grace - had sent him into a spiral of thought.

It didn't escape Aidan that there were people in the world, not just this one, but others as well, who believed in him and wanted the best for him. It never had, not really. Back home he'd had Josh and Sally, who had done everything they could to make sure that he was able to be the guy he wanted to be. Then he'd been in a world where there had been Dean, Evey, and Peter. Here he had even more.

Aidan could never take that for granted.

He realized that he kind of had been. The way he was acting, the way he'd been treating Evey. Even the way he'd been treating himself. He'd made a monumental mistake, and he'd felt terribly about it, but then he'd acted like a child. Peter was supplying him with blood so that he didn't have to take from living people or take from the hospital. And still he was keeping himself away from people.

He thought about all of this and more as he walked toward work.

There was only so long that Arya could stay in Erik's mansion. Mag was nice, but there were only so many times that she could see the same person before getting sick of her. And there was a whole city out beyond the fence. Arya had only seen a glimpse of it before Erik's car hit her. She was curious. She was bored. She needed to get out.

Her leg was almost better now, she was sure. Her ribs felt better--she could take deep breaths without it hurting at all. She was positive that she would be fine if she went out on her own. It was just a matter of timing. So she waited and watched for a few days and planned it all out. Finally, she dressed in the clothes that she'd arrived in--the clothes in her room were all dresses, pretty dresses, and she could not sneak very well in them--and then she took Needle for protection and snuck out.

Arya limped along quickly, still in her cast but moving well despite that, wide-eyed at the sights outside of Erik's mansion. There--more cars. Now that she knew what they were, they weren't quite so frightening. They were just carts without horses, and she wasn't scared of carts. There--giant buildings of metal and glass. There--food. By now she had been out for some time, and was hungry.

The sign said "Cafe", and she could smell warm bread and other things. Arya knew what she looked like--no longer as skinny and undersized as she had been in Westeros thanks to regular meals, no longer dirty, but her clothes were still battered and her hair was still ragged. She approached the man at the counter, exaggerating her limp and making her eyes big and sad. "I'm so hungry," she said. "Do you have something to spare?"

The man at the counter didn't spare her a glance. "You either pay or you leave. Don't bother the customers."

Arya tried again. "Please," she said. "My leg hurts so bad and I'm hungry."

Sleeping had done much for Eric. He'd slept longer than he'd intended to, but his body needed to recover - so did his mind. The trauma of the event had not been painful until the joining of the two minds, wherein Eric had gained every single memory from the other self from the time of their diverging lives.

He did not feel his other self inside, but Baba had stated that he was wrong on that matter. As much as Eric did not want it to be the case, it was not his way to doubt what his wife said and knew just because he didn't like it.

These thoughts returned to him as he lifted himself out of the peaceful fog of slumber. His nose told him they were still in the room that the horrors had happened in, burned and ruined by Baba's anger and frustration. He reached out with his senses, with their link, and with his hand to make sure that she was still beside him. Their link was stronger again, more like where it had been when he'd woken up from his strange slumber. It was not lost, then. He was glad.

"My wife," he said softly. "I suppose now is as good a time as any for you to explain why you don't think this other version of me is gone completely."

He knew she'd know about the memories, he'd already told her. He wasn't discounting those as alien, but he felt nothing more. Except for those memories, Eric felt entirely like himself.

The night had come. She wasn't nervous or upset. She hadn't minded that the two Vikings had found some solace or enjoyment in each other's arms. Oddly she felt it was to be expected. She hadn't even minded that she hadn't been asked to come and play; she would have been happy to, but it was neither here nor there. If it had been someone else, her feelings might have been different, depending on the time, place, and person.

So, there the crone sat on a bed she'd shared with her husband long ago before he was her husband. Before they'd taken to living together. Before a good bit. She looked around the dark room, meant to keep him save from the sun outside. Her blood now did that.

She hadn't dressed up for the night. She hadn't brought them dinner, or tried to set a mood. She'd simply made her way to the room and sat on the bed to wait. It wasn't that she felt she had to do anything, nor did she seem to be waiting to out the other woman, or man. She just waited patiently to see how the night would go. To see what might happen because anything could and possibly would happen.

The crone shifted a little, feeling oddly restless. That was perhaps the only thing that distracted her from what enjoyment she sought here. Things were changing again in the City; balance or chaos was soon to come. Or both, knowing this place.

So, she waited to see what was going to happen.

The castle was somehow peaceful despite the fact that there were so many people living in it, and Eric did not for once believe that it was due to the structure being so big, or that they all liked one another. Vampire nests were notoriously hostile at the start as creatures vied for their positions in the hierarchy.

Not even he and the other Eric had butted heads on anything.

Of course, they were sleeping together regularly, so that likely helped.

He knew that his pseudo twin had not touched Baba Yaga, despite there having been contact in the past. And he knew that it had been done out of respect. But they'd had a conversation and it had been mildly disturbing. Not because of the content, it was fully something he expected her to do, but because he hadn't before considered that he might not be the one left behind once everything was righted. He knew as well as the other that this arrangement was temporary, but he'd assumed as his other had done that everything would be returned to how it should be.

Eric, though, knew once it was said aloud and her emotions reached through the bond to him, that there were more possibilities. He knew the City too well to expect it to be clean in any way. As Baba was aware, and had said, it might not be him left behind, which was something of a problem.

He wished to continue the talk his wife had begun with the other.

The fire in the sitting room off of their bedroom was lit for no particular reason, and Eric was stretched out on the couch.

My wife. he called to her through their link, through their feelings. There was no true telepathy there, but she would sense that she was wanted.

The crone stared out the window high in the castle, a small stool beneath. She didn't need a physical item to fly anymore, but she did like it; it was a strange comfort, magic focused as it was. She watched the night sky, knowing that they were closer to stars than some might realize. She watched the night creatures in the park, wondering if they understood there were things more dangerous in the daytime than they would ever be. She watched her Viking king, the one who belonged to and with her, walk her cabin; it had thankfully not trampled the vampire when he returned.

Eric probably knew she was watching, and he even looked to the window she sat at, no wave, no goodbye kiss, just a slight nod of his head before he went to work. He was a fair king, mostly, and he did not expect anything from his vampires that he wouldn't do himself. She watched him speed off to Purgatory, a hint of a smile on her lips at how that played in her head. With that done, she lowered the stool and set off in search of the other one. Hers, yet not hers.

There was something in the air, and instinct said it had something to do with multiples - twins were often genetic mistakes or miracles. Humans weren't meant to whelp in multiples. Reality couldn't allow for mistakes, yet they weren't in a normal reality, not even in a fabled one. So, she felt the need to talk to a possible mistake, or miracle. It depended on the beholder.

That or the crone was simply curious to see what the man who came from little and had fought for what he had, ruling with a very sharp fang and strong hands, what he thought of the City now that he had been here for a while. The City, the castle, her Viking king and his kingdom.

"Hello." She hadn't asked permission to enter the other king's quarters, finding him in one of the two places she'd expect from knowing her own king. She wore a dress that some might think indecent to wear around a man with whom she was not intimate; it wasn't quite sheer. A leather bound book in her arms as she stood there.

The weather in the City was pretty much always perfect. There were days with rain, but they were still mostly warm. But there were still seasons. In fall the leaves fell (the trees were never bare, though), in winter there might be some snowflakes (never anything like the one great storm where the City had gotten carried away), and summers were warm and sunny and nobody had school.

Still, this year, the City felt like celebrating spring. Not any particular holiday. Just spring in general. There were new people around, there were couples in love, and it wanted to have a great big party for everyone.

Overnight, it set up the great festival. Streets all around the park were closed off so that people could walk around without issue. The park itself was expanded to over twice the normal size. A great clearing was made in the center, stretching from one side to the other. There needed to be lots of room.

Through this clearing the City placed tents, stands, and tables. These were filled with food and wares of all types. There were representatives for all the popular shops, as well as some that nobody had ever seen there before. There were stands for balloons for the kids, too, free of charge. And flowers absolutely everywhere. Woven into the stands themselves, laying on tables, set up in vases, growing in every patch that the City was sure nobody would accidentally step on them. Colorful ribbons, some as large as crepe streamers, also decorated everything. The City wanted as much color as it could possibly get.

At one end of the clearing the City placed a small carnival. Rides, games, everything it could think of. Even a petting zoo, though some of the animals within weren't typical farm animals that usually went in petting zoos. At the other it placed a few stages for performances. Concerts, plays, musicians. The stages were all contained within their own invisible sound barriers, as to not disturb one another, but the noise from all could be heard on the main promenade.

It put signs up all over, put notices in mailboxes, ads on the radio, commercials on television, and even made Candy and Frank talk about it on the morning news.

The celebration would go from sunrise to midnight. At sunset, the City would have a bonfire, complete with a pig roast and s'mores. At that time, it would move the park closer to the water, creating a beach between for the bonfire to settle on.

The crone didn't leave her cabin for a while; she couldn't. She had to make sure it would survive after what the angel had put it through. She didn't rush to her husband, not yet. Now and then she would check to make sure he was still free, within reach - the feeling of distance and unavailable no longer playing along the bond between them.

Once she was certain her cabin was fine and settled at the castle, she started toward the Dracula's castle. She sent an inquiry out to the vampire she shared such a strange bond, the one that had found its way to getting the Viking king and the crone married. She wasn't asking for anything; she wasn't requiring anything. She simply wondered about him, and she felt the need to see him, to put her hands on him and know that he was.

Her destination in the large castle was a library; there were stories there, and she felt the need to find her story again. She felt the need to find the story of angels as well. Angels, demons, vampires. Tradition wanted something; it always wanted something, usually to be satisfied and to maintain the status quo. She needed to know what tradition may throw at them with the combinations. She wanted to be prepared. If she did not find what she wanted among these tomes, she would actually visit the Library, and she would learn more.

Castiel stood outside one of the strangest homes he’d ever seen. He wasn’t even sure it was a home, really, the magic imbued in it gave it a lifelike presence that bordered more on creature than physical structure.


It was obviously very powerful, and spoke vaguely of what could only be a more powerful entity inside. But, from what the warrior had been able to gather, this was where the strange older woman Beauty had called “Red” lived.


He didn’t trust this woman, but she was clearly a strong entity, and she seemed to have taken at least a momentary interest in him. In Cas’ experience that was when bad things happened, so he had tracked her down to find out what her purpose was before any of his new friends in the City, and possibly older ones he hadn’t found yet, were dragged into something.


Still, he wasn’t quite determined enough to try breaking into that house and angering her outright, so after a few moments’ contemplation he turned, leading all of the humans in the vicinity a safe distance with subtle but undeniable encouragement, and then popped out of thin air directly in front of the structure, standing still as he looked up at it.


“Woman, Red,” he spoke in his true voice, a sound that brought most humans to their knees in agony. He wanted to know how it would affect this… entity. “I would speak with you.”


( --- )

The smell of pizza still lingered with Castiel as he teleported from rooftop to street corner, appearing, watching for a few moments, and then dissappearing after he was sure he hadn't found any of his friends. Or Megan. He held that image in his mind ahead of most, second only to Dean or Sam, part of him hopeful that he could do a favor for the Spiderman who'd fed him. It was still strange to him to eat, even after losing some of his power, but it also seemed to make him feel better at times. He supposed that might be a side affect from being human for a while, but since it was still unneccessary for him he wasted little time thinking about it. Not when there were people to find and information to gather.

As he moved he remained largely hidden, picking up information about this... "City", as it seemed to have no other name. He was also feeling stronger than he had in a while, perhaps with distance from the dead world, and by the time he appeared at the edge of a park he felt and looked normal once again, his battered clothes regenerating as the rest of his body did.

At the sidewalk's edge he stood, hands in his pockets, looking out over the green space. Everything here was... odd. Changed. Forced, even, though it felt like whatever placed it here had left it to its own devices since. The angel pondered the difference from his own planet and home, and from that of the dead world. Every new place he went felt fundamentally different, and so far neither alternative sat with him better than his own original had at the end.

Lost in thought as he watched people enjoy the afternoon, he didn't notice he'd reappeared, even when a passerby gasped and jumped slightly at the seemingly unremarkable man pop out of thin air. They hurried on, and Castiel continued to watch the people forelornly, unaware of having caused any fuss at all.

Another day without her husband. She could feel him somewhere, close by yet so far away. The crone wondered what those kept away were thinking or feeling - she could get some hint of Eric, but he had become more of a constant buzz of emotional white noise. As if the City were trying to spare her somehow. He was there, but not...

She groaned softly at herself. Being the lost little woman was not what she was, and she wouldn't have any of it. With a determined hmph, she got out of bed, got dressed and headed out. There was one she'd cursed recently, and she was curious to see how he was coming.

The City had told her where he might be, and she didn't think twice of her desire to check the place out. It was her doing the job properly, or somewhat properly. The plan had been to head there, but the City kept moving around - more so than normal.

Finally with a soft stomp of her dainty foot - sandaled as it usually was - she stopped in front of a coffee shop. "That is enough. I will go see whom I wish." She could have done a small sweep of the City for her magic, or for the cursed one in question; she would have known then that the doctor was no longer in residence, but she was trying to do this the polite way?

Her brows furrowed a little as she felt a push from an unseen hand. Magic/instinct kicked in, and she started floating. Her brow rose, but rather than fight the invisible force, she floated where it guided. Surely the City knew that even with her change in heart, it might not be wise in making her do anything. The outcome was still unpredictable. Hopefully if someone was on the other end of this invisible path...they were ready for an angry sorceress.

The night seemed calmer than usual to her, but perhaps here it was always serene. Not a gale blew, no wind or rain or sunshine. It was only her and the moon. Where such a feeling stemmed from she wasn't sure because she had never experienced anything quite like it before.

Except for a few times back before she had burden. Before she could see.

There was something special about complete darkness, being enshrouded away from the world and unable to imagine or fathom the things within the distance of a simple touch of the fingers or hands. It was something else to never behold true color, to never see outline or detail or shape. At that time she couldn't attempt to think of definition, depth, or even what the most simple object could be. But she could touch them and try. And she did.

At least until her luck changed for the better and for the worst.

The fact that Mag had left her dressing room for her final performance and had ended up in a City Commons struck her as unusual. She was used to Sanitarium Square, and this was nothing like that. There were no tents or booths set up that offered illicit surgery or cosmetic alteration. No, this one was bare of life, void of existence save for the rustle of a few nearby strays looking for dinner.

In the sky there was nothing. No floating billboards with her picture nor did she see any of her posters plastered on any of the buildings. It was a Heaven and a Hell both at the same time. It confused her. But if she was frightened then she didn't show it. She knew enough to keep her wits about her when something strange happened, she had been deflecting strange for a very long time. And yet was she, herself, not the epitome of strange? Take for example her eyes.

Once brown, her eyes held a glow of their own. They had held youth and innocence, dreams and hopes. Now they sparkled, lit up and shimmered, danced and swirled with a much different kind of glow. Rotti's glow. GeneCo's glow. The glow of a star, the most famous Soprano in all of the world and despite how young she did look Mag was tired of it all. She had been ready to give it all up, the glowing optics included because those were a symbol of her slavery. Her binding contracted signed in blood by a foolish girl a very long time ago.

She had been willing to sing her final aria, Chromaggia, with whom she shared so much in common.

But it had to wait and part of her was glad. She was still in full costume , the presence of the stage never fully having left her despite the obvious change in surrounding. The heels of her boots clicked against the pavement as she walked, but she didn't cease movement. She couldn't until she had figured out exactly where she was, and why she had come. She had to get to the bottom of this and she would in good time.

"I hurt people."

"He hurts people more."

"Darling, you need more than that."

"Darling? You have changed."

"Have I?"

"Please. If not for me, and the others, for him. I have shown you that he needs help."

The crone stared into the small slim box, watching the images play again. The City had asked for her help, and it had done so at its own risk. Its body was very temporary, not meant for a long stay, and it was showing signs before the conversation was half way over. It wasn't meant to last long; the City had learned.

The City had also come prepared. How it had captured the images, she hadn't ask. She was not one to bother with tech; she knew it existed, knew how to use it in the basics, and that was all she needed to know. But, what she'd seen there was horrendous, even though she knew before a few nights ago, she would have enjoyed it so much more.

The techniques to aid had been twisted. What she understood. This man meant to heal had gone bad. She understood this as well. Or perhaps he'd always been bad - she didn't have all of his story. She'd need to get closer, and at the moment she didn't have time for that.

It wasn't until the City said the last bit that she'd felt the urge to get involved. Help. She knew she could fight it off, that feeling. Granted, fighting instinct was a little harder now, but she could do it. Yet...

She asked for one other thing from the City, and it didn't need to deliver the request itself. She received a vial of the man's blood, where all three of these beings existed. Sure, she could have asked for the City to attempt to get a bit of the man's brain, but the blood would do. She'd use it all - she could get more, she supposed.

It took a few more nights, arranging with the City - she gave it simple commands to move this way or that, provide this weather or that - and finally she was ready.

The spell was spoken in soft words, nothing more than a murmur. There had been those who had died or remained forever scarred from this spell, so it was considered more of a curse. An until the "victim" learned or became whole type of curse.

"Locked away with the darkness and fears. The pieces of you will fight. Until you return to the sole being, you shall not see true light." Her nose wrinkled at the last bit. She didn't care for the rhyming conventions, but it often made the spell more palatable to whatever nudged it along.

"There will be those who you have hurt and loved. They will move you along. Or they will be your undoing. It is your choice, Jonathan Crane. Make of this what you will, but should you not move through what comes, you shall never be free to live your life. Dreaming always." This was how she preferred to cast, but a little bit of both never hurt.

Her first spell as the Crone in so very long a time. She glanced at her face in the mirror then around at her cabin.

"This ought to be interesting."

Something wasn't right. The anger was gone, the pain less. There was something else that she couldn't put her finger on. The small magic wielder stretched in a bed that felt so very empty, yet she wasn't able to give it up. She curled up again and stared at the empty spot beside her. Yes, something was not right.

She crawled slowly out of bed and made her way to the bathroom and the mirror waiting there. She smiled a little at herself for considering calling on the spirits that sometimes lived in that world between, that world that always looked out from behind glass, captured between glass and mercury. That smile was...odd.

"What have you done?" Her hand lifted to touch the face there. It was still her face, almost more so. The question wasn't for the image staring back at her, but she did wonder. What had happened to the rage? Why wasn't she prepared to rip young pretty things apart? Exposing their hearts without actually removing said hearts from the young ones? Her brows furrowed.

"Oh, darling child, what have you done?" She touched the mirror, giving the image a soft sad smile. She took a deep breath; she needed to find her cabin and think. It was almost a relief to not think of revenge right off. Almost.

By now, The City had watched many of its denizens celebrate this thing called 'Christmas' and it was beginning to understand it better. It was a time for fir decoration. A time for singing songs. A time for creamy or apple flavored beverages. There were also presents.

The presents were the most interesting things to The City. It understood that the presents were designed to be special. To be meaningful. To express care. And The City did care about its people. Very much.

This year, it decided that it would participate in this 'Christmas.' And it wanted to participate in a big way.

A Douglas Fir sprung up overnight, positioned in the heart of The City. It was huge, dwarfing most multi-level buildings, bedecked in oversized copies of the decorations that previous and current citizens had used on their own trees. The Christmas star dwarfed the moon in its brightness.

But what to do for presents? The City had seen that presents were supposed to be personal. They were supposed to be something that made sense for one to give to the other. But The City did not know how to give presents in this way. It tried to calculate what would be right for every citizen - and failed. At last, it decided that it would grant one wish to each citizen. Just one. And it would do its best to fulfill it in a personal way.

Power? The City wanted power? There were dozen others it could have claimed, but it took her husband? It took her Viking king. She was tempted to raze large parts of the places to show just how much she didn't care for this situation. She was tempted to see just how many of its children she could turn into frogs or snakes; perhaps they could go about eating each other. The crone was more than ready to shove the City back into a human body and see just how much power it might need. It didn't even have a God to protect it. Stupid City.

Baba Yaga didn't stay in the castle. She couldn't. She took to the cabin more often than not; it seemed just as sad as its mistress. She wanted to hide away, but the cabin knew just as well as she did that the crone couldn't stay locked away forever. So, soon it did the only thing it knew how; it dumped its mistress out and walked away, taking itself to some other place and leaving her there on Dracula's lawn in little more than a black shift.

She sat there and stared, realizing the sun still shone brightly and the people still did as they did - lived. This angered her again, pulling her from the sadness and loss. She needed to make someone else hurt.

Rising to her feet, Baba Yaga started to walk with one thing in mind. Causing someone else pain, confusion, and then some.

The castle felt a lot more fitting to him than any of the residences he'd taken up within the City to date. More than the hotel room he had shared with Baba, more than the hidden day place he kept even now, just in case. More than Fangtasia, certainly more now that it was Purgatory. And definitely more than Baba's weird little cabin - which followed him around as he walked the grounds of the castle like a puppy.

It wasn't just because of his royal bloodline, the fact that he should have been a king in a former life. It wasn't even the fact that he was pretty much a king now. A king with a queen he'd waited centuries for.

The place was just... right.

Of course, even with a place that was right, there was something missing. He hadn't seen Logan in a while, and worse, he couldn't feel Logan within the City anymore. There was just a void where the boy had once been. It wasn't, admittedly, as large a gap as it would have been had this been Pam, his first progeny would always be his favorite, no matter who came along. But Eric couldn't deny that he had a fondness for Logan that had been growing since the first time they'd met. And he had filled a strange, previously unknown Viking need to sire a male heir.

Given that Pam could, and would, be able to take over completely and with authority and ability should anything happen to him, it was an absurd need to have at all. Still, that very ancient pride had welled up after Logan's making.

The vampire sat, brooding a little, in a vast living area that had a giant fireplace. He'd lit the wood within, even though it wasn't cold and he'd never particularly feel the need for a fire. There was a large wingbacked chair situated directly in front of the warmth. He was planted in it, staring at nothing.

Bare from the waist up, with every bit of his blood saturated in spice, Leto dropped to a knee beside the sandtrap in Sietch Jacurutu. He'd lived this moment countless times in his vision, this focal point. He went back -- he went forward -- but it was always here, here: the Golden Path began here. The choice his father could never make. The preservation of the future of humanity -- and all the terrible choices that must rise from this one. Gently, he lowered his hand toward the sand, touched it, slid his fingers deeper --

-- and found himself kneeling on lush, thick grass, blinking in the brightness of the sun. He was never for a moment confused: This was no vision. Leto stood to his feet. He was dressed in strange clothes - finely made, but not in any of the styles of the Fremen or the House Atreides. Stretching his arms out in front of him, he smiled a quirky little smile and then turned his attention fully outward, eyes closing as he breathed in deeply.

This was not Arrakis. This was not even his solar system. And this existence was wholly, blissfully free of the stagnation brought about the dependency on melange, the power of the Spacing Guild... and the Bene Gesserit... and the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program. Here, humanity's evolution would continue, unfettered from the traps of Arrakis.

His electric blue eyes snapped open again. At once, Leto began to smile. The smile grew and grew until at last he was laughing -- laughing warmly in the freedom. There was no need for that Golden Path now. Humanity was free.

Leto was free.

As soon as Charlie left, Dexter knew that he was going to do something that he shouldn't. He set the facial recognition program to run on the Violetta murders, putting in the mathematical parameters to seek out the face that the victims matched, and left his lab. He locked the door to assure that nobody would go in there and interrupt the program, though that particular part of this quest was more than legal, and definitely sanctioned since it had been requested by a detective.

In his mind, he held the address to the most recent murder. Still closed off by the police as a crime scene, and out of bounds for him to enter since he didn't have the clearance yet that Charlie had promised him. This was not his case. He would get into a good deal of trouble if he was caught. That didn't even slow Dexter down, though.

He had not really hunted since he'd been in the City. He had let Effie go, which he shouldn't have done. Now nobody knew where she was. She'd escaped the jail somehow. Her cell was empty. There was an APB out on her, every cop in the City was keeping their eyes peeled. Dexter was regretting again that he hadn't killed her. Especially after the offer he'd made. That if she could detach herself from her father completely, he'd take her under his wing. So much for that.

Dexter entered the house by jumping over the back fence, and nudging open the basement window. He knew that the murder had occurred on a higher floor, but this way he wasn't breaking any crime scene tape, and any trace of himself would be easier to remove. One of the latex gloves he wore caught on a nail, so he had to take a moment to not only replace it, but clean up the powder and any hint of his skin cells that might have been exposed, but all in all, he was within the scene in a matter of minutes.

He moved slowly up the basement stares, checking for creaks before he let his full weight onto them. He didn't expect anybody to be in the house, but there was no reason to not be careful. He had syringes on him filled with his usual, just in case. He would give anybody within enough to make them think they'd fallen asleep while on guard duty, and nobody would ever know.

But the house was as empty as he had expected it to be when he opened the basement door. Dexter moved easier from there, and quicker. He found the room where the massacre had taken place, his eyes taking in the blood left behind.

It had taken some arranging to get the opera house to himself for the night. Especially with the upcoming season. But at last Erik presented him with a handful of choices, and Eric took the one that most pleased him.

As he had said, he did all the decorating himself. It didn't take him long at all, considering the speed at which he could work. It would take him less time for it all to come down. Nobody would ever know they'd been in there, except for the ones that were in on it. He had dinner for Baba arranged in the box that he'd been loaned, sitting under a sterling silver dome was a robust steak and some rare vegetables. Eric had picked an expensive red wine to go along with it. The table was small, but it would suit her needs.

He had been given a violinist and a dancer, as he had asked. There would be only music as she ate, so she didn't have to worry about missing anything, and then a bit of a show.

The fairy lights created a tunnel from the front door all the way to the box, only the floor was bare of them. He had taken care to not mess with any fixtures or put holes in Erik's walls, he doubted that the man would like that even a little. But he'd managed to do what he'd planned despite the detour of no nails or stick pins. Eric had laid down thick black velvet along the path's floor.

He waited just outside the opera house for his wife. He'd left a note on her pillow saying only find me. Eric knew that she could do so without any hints or directions. He didn't want to tip his hand too soon.