A/N: This was written for the Stephen King Halloween Challenge using the title The Eyes of the Dragon and Hotch/Rossi as a pairing. There is no slash in this story.

"All fantasy should have a solid base in reality."- Max Beerbohm

October 31, 2012- New Orleans, Louisiana

"What have you done with Agent Hotchner?"

SSA David Rossi stood in a New Orleans police station interrogation room across from a suspect, albeit a very annoying one at that. The suspect was a short, messy haired, middle aged man, who had refused to give his name and was sitting in a chair with his head down and his eyes wandering. If Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner's life wasn't on the line, Rossi would have smacked the suspect just out of annoyance.

The Behavioral Analysis team of Rossi, Hotch, SSA Jennifer Jareau, SSA Spencer Reid, SSA Emily Prentiss, SSA Derek Morgan, and their technical analyst, Penelope Garcia ,currently in Quantico, were in New Orleans hunting down an unsub with an MO the team had never seen before. Ten males of different ages and ethnicities had been kidnapped and killed over a three month period.

The disturbing part that caught the team's attention was that the unsub had drugged each man with an hallucinogen that neither the FBI nor New Orleans police recognized before shooting each man point blank, laying them carefully on each man's front lawns and leaving a small bronze Chinese coin next to each body .The extremely unusual MO made it difficult for the team to create a profile that was solid enough to go on. With a weak profile, the case had slowly trudged on for two weeks until the previous night when something bad happened.

Prentiss and Hotch had gone to a club called Dragon's Den, a favorite spot for two of the victims, for follow up questions with the club owner, Henry Duggar. Three hours later, no one had heard anything from Prentiss nor Hotch. Rossi immediately stepped in and took charge of the situation and called in for as many officers as possible to meet at the Dragon's Den. When officers and the team had arrived, Duggar was found dead, Prentiss was found unconscious and bleeding and Hotch was missing. The team scoured the club for hours until the suspect had walked on the scene with blood on his shirt and Hotch's watch in his hands.

"I can't tell you- not yet….it's not time," the suspect stammered. Rossi growled in annoyance as he thought of how much time Hotch had left if he was injured, wherever he was. The younger agent was pretty much a son to Rossi and if anything had happened today, Rossi was sure that the suspect sitting in front of him would be the first man in his crosshairs.

"You kidnapped a federal officer, attacked another, and for all I know you could be the one behind these killings!" Rossi yelled. The suspect didn't seem fazed by the agent's tone at all. In fact, the man was more concerned with Hotch's watch more than anything else. Rossi took a second and realized that aggression wasn't going to make the man talk, but empathy might.

Rossi sat down and inhaled deeply, cupping his hands together to get himself to calm down. The suspect took one more glance at Hotch's watch before looking directly at Rossi.

"We know that you attacked Agent Prentiss and took Agent Hotchner," Rossi stated calmly, "Did you kidnap and kill those men too?"

"Yes," the suspect answered. He started to toy with the dials on Hotch's watch while saying, "I had to- I am the Dragon and had to kill those men once they didn't pass the test! They weren't- weren't good enough to take my place."

"I-I don't understand," Rossi replied uneasily. "What are you talking about?"

"March 11, 1976- the day of my birth. By Chinese Zodiac ideology, I am considered to be a fire dragon. You and so many others deny your Zodiac signs by laughing them off, but they are real!" The suspect raised his voice as his eyes bulged with excitement. " I couldn't find any actual dragon born people so I decided to look for a protector- that's what Dragons do, you know. They protect us and are intelligent, brave, and represent power!"

That's the connection between the victims. A CEO, a manager, a firefighter- all brave, smart, and powerful, Rossi thought. "And Agent Hotchner?"

The suspect grinned. "I-I looked him up on Google and saw that he's a snake- he only missed being a true dragon by a few months. I saw him at the crime scene two weeks ago and seemed perfect.

So I took him yesterday and decided to test him by giving him the powder so that he could see what I saw when I was born-"

"A dragon," Rossi finished. He glanced over to Hotch's watch, which was still in the suspect's hands. "Is it time yet?"

"No, not yet. It's not time yet. He-he has to truly see what I saw, but I hope he can with-with the noise of the highway going-"

I got him. Rossi pulled out his cell phone and dialed Garcia's number. The perky yet worried analyst answered on the first ring.

"Sir?"

"Garcia," Rossi said, "I need you to find any abandoned buildings among the highway- try the Pontchartrain Expressway first." As he listened to Garcia type away on the computer, Rossi quickly walked out of the room, leaving the suspect to toy with Hotch's watch. He met the rest of the team in the hallway and put his phone on speaker.

"Garcia, did you find anything?" Rossi asked.

Garcia uttered, " Wait….wait…oh! SSA Rossi, this why you are the master of masters, the king of kings! There is a warehouse called La Florien that sits a block away from the expressway. It was abandoned after Katrina so if you wanted to hide someone to do crazy to them, that's a place to do it. Now go get our captain and bring home!"

Rossi looked to each agent. "You heard the woman, let's go."