Chapter 1

Raven awoke in a cold sweat. This was all too quickly becoming a familiar routine. In her dreams, the man with the strange eyes would chase her, sometimes down streets, more often down a dead-end alley. She would barely keep ahead of him, she would feel his breath on the back of her neck, and she would scream, shattering the nightmare and returning here. She doubted any of the others had heard her any of the nights, but it still galled her to be so out of control of her own emotions.

Before leaving the room, she checked again on the most dangerous books of her collection. The Grimoire and Necronomicon were gathering dust as they had been for the past few years, but when she glanced cursorily at the third book, the tome that imprisoned Melchior, her breath stopped. There was a handprint in the dust that covered it. She tested her hand against the size of it, the print was perhaps a half-inch wider than her own hand. She gave a small sigh of relief. In the form he was imprisoned in, Melchior's hand was smaller than her own. This thought gave her solace for a bare moment, until it dawned on her that she didn't know who could have bypassed all her wards to enter her room undetected. Then she saw something which froze her blood. A single rune had been drawn in the dust, and she left the room in what might have been mistaken for panic by a casual observer.

Robin was sprawled on the couch, product of an exhausting night, snoring loudly. Beast Boy and Cyborg stood over him, the former with a permanent marker, the latter with makeup pilfered from Starfire, and both sporting identical maniacal grins. They started as raven rushed into the room, certain it was Starfire and that the jig was up. Beast Boy was the first to recover. "Jesus, Raven, would it kill you to make some noise when you're moving?"

"No, but it might kill you if I made enough noise to wake up Star, don't you think?" she replied levelly. "She was in the shower when I went by her room, so you probably have a few minutes. Just don't involve me." With that she floated over to the kitchen and began to rummage through the cabinets for the tea leaves. Not finding it, she called over her shoulder, "if you idiots moved my tea again, I'll do something unspeakably horrible to you. "

Beast Boy, who'd been on the receiving end of such treatment before, cringed and said "top shelf, at the back," and gave a small sigh of relief when Raven found it and moved to the coffee maker. Then he turned back to Robin, grinning.

Raven made herself a small pot of tea and sat down at the table with a book. She opened it to where a ribbon marked her place. It had been a busy week, so she'd been stuck on the same chapter for days now. Sure enough, no sooner had she cracked it open than the red light above the master computer started flashing, and a siren began to cycle. Robin, instantly awake, leaped from the couch, knocking Beast Boy and Cyborg away, though the items in their hands had mysteriously disappeared. Raven floated lazily over, holding her tea. "Who is it this time?" she asked between sips.

"There was a break in at a… what are you staring at?" he asked. Raven shrugged and focused on the screen. She must have been more affected by the nightmares recently than she had thought. Usually she wasn't one to lose her composure the way Robin's expression told her she had. "Anyway," Robin continued, "there's been a break-in at one of the factories downtown. They smashed a hole through the wall big enough to drive a truck through, so my guess is it's Cinderblock."

Starfire flew through the door to join them. Robin turned to her. "Star, get ready, we're headed out…. Why is everyone staring at me today?!" he demanded. Everyone assured him it was nothing.

Cyborg headed for the garage to get the wheels back on the car. Beast boy headed into the kitchen to whip up breakfast for the team, and Robin punched Aqualad's number into the communicator. After a few buzzes, the hero's face showed up onscreen. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was mussed up. "What's up, Robin? It better be…." He trailed off.

"For god's sake, what is wrong with everyone today?!" robin yelled. "do I have something on my….." He spun around, and his eyes landed on beast boy. Feeling the weight of his friend's gaze on his back, the green youth turned around slowly with an innocent look on his face. That usually meant anything but. Realization dawned on Robin in a sudden burst. "I'll call you back in a second, Aqualad," Robin said. "we might even have an empty spot on the roster over here if you're looking for a change of scenery." He stalked towards beast boy, who had dropped all pretense of acting innocent. Starfire and Raven were watching with varied degrees of interest.

"come on, Robin, it was just a joke, don't be like that, you'd be laughing if it was Cyborg." Robin kept advancing, going through the compartments in his belt, from smoke bombs, to the ice grenades, hovered for a second on the birdarangs, and finally settled on the paint bombs. He pulled out a handful of these. Beast Boy glanced left and right nervously. "Hey, man, that's not cool, you know those don't wash- AAH!" he ducked the first one, which splattered on the wall behind him. Three more followed it, and he escaped only by changing into a bird. He cawed indignantly and flapped off down the hall, with robin in pursuit.

Starfire looked at Raven with a blank, uncomprehending question on her face. "Friend Raven, why does friend Robin have 'penis' written on his forehead? Is this some earth tradition I do not know? Should I write it upon my head?" she was genuinely flustered. Raven, for the thousandth time that month, it felt like, sighed at Starfire's naiveté and began to explain.