Alright. I couldn't resist posting the 4th chapter. It's too timely.


It was nearly Halloween, therefore, it was only right that the department holds a small Halloween party. Dr. Pigeon loved get-togethers and would press to have one at any opportunity. Over the past two months, Lily and Dr. Crane had gotten on very well. They were in the middle of writing a paper together on replicating the neurochemicals mice released during times of fear. It was really all Dr. Crane's work, all Lily did was administer the replicated chemicals to the mice and monitor their reactions. Dr. Crane was the genius that created the formula, talented in both psychology and chemistry. Even after a month Lily was in awe of and intimidated by, his intelligence.

"Will I see you at the Halloween party tomorrow night?" Lily asked Dr. Crane as she pulled on her coat. It was after seven, high time that they stop working and head home.

"You are going?" Dr. Crane asked, half distracted as he packed his courier bag with books and papers.

"I thought I would. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year and Marcus and Alexi asked me to come. I usually celebrated back home so I thought it would be nice to here. There was mention of reading ghost stories and having a costume contest. Besides, I can never turn down free food."

Dr. Crane looked down into his bag. Perhaps checking that he had everything, perhaps contemplating his answer. "Would you like me to come, Miss Taggart?"

"I know gatherings are not inside your usual comfort zone but I think your readings of Lovecraft would scare everyone."

A half smile came over Dr. Crane's lips before he slung the bag over his shoulder and looked at Lily. "I will try to come. Though I am not one for costumes."

Lily smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Crane."

The smile on Dr. Crane face grew at Lily's own. They left together, Lily waiting as Dr. Crane locked the office door. As they walked down the narrow hallway together a door opened further down. Dr. Pigeon's office. A young female undergraduate student came out, her blonde hair mussed, her clothes ruffled. She shut the door behind her, not noticing either of the two watching her, and made her way down the hall her head hung. Her gait was uneven, as though she was sensitive between the legs.

Lily and Dr. Crane watched silently. Lily's face was shocked. Dr. Crane's resigned. Once the girl was down the steps Lily looked up at Dr. Crane, her mouth open but unable to say anything. Still looking ahead Dr. Crane spoke quietly. "We cannot say anything."

Lily's mouth opened further and she inhaled sharply to speak. But Dr. Crane did not give her the chance. He grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look him in the eyes. His blue eyes were hard but fiery as they bored into hers. "No. Bill Pigeon has friends in very, very high places. You think there have not been investigations before? There have. Two, during my years here and all of them, were dismissed and the students and staff on the prosecuting side expelled or fired. We cannot bring this up. Do you understand?"

Closing her mouth Lily nodded. "I understand, Dr. Crane."

"Good." Releasing her Dr. Crane brushed out his suit coat. They walked together once more following the path of the undergraduate student. Outside, where they usually parted ways, both paused.

"I know it will be difficult," Dr. Crane said looking into the distance. "If you feel you must make your report, but please, leave me out of it. I cannot risk being blacklisted."

"I told you I understand, Dr. Crane," Lily repeated, her tone darker than usual. "I will not say a word...honestly, in Gotham, what else would you expect?"

Dr. Crane gave a short nod. "Then I bid you goodnight, Miss Taggart."

"Goodnight, Dr. Crane." Lily turned to the left towards her apartments while Dr. Crane turned right to the parking lot. As she walked home Lily's face was in a frown. She had heard passing rumors about Dr. Pigeon's activities but to have them confirmed like that? It was not what she expected. This was a moral dilemma she thought she would never face. Take the moral high ground and report him? No, according to Dr. Crane that was useless. Then do wrong by ignoring it? That felt dirty.

What options did she have otherwise? Lily had worked far too hard to lose everything. She would not risk her education, her career in such a way. That may be how institutionalized abuse continued but this was Gotham. Institutionalized abuse was part of the charm.


Lily leaned against the wall observing the room. There was a mess of costumes before her, from sexy cats to cartoon characters and popular memes to old-fashioned monsters. Lily was the later, a good old fashioned monster. One just couldn't go wrong with dressing as a vampire. Although she loved Halloween Lily, like Dr. Crane, was not one for costumes - at least in inventiveness. Though, as her outfit suggested, when she decided on a costume it was not a cheap or store bought, it was made to last. This costume was Victorian style, a black and red corset over a properly ruffled cream blouse and matched with a black skirt. Her makeup was dark around the eyes and lips and pale in the face; while a pair of molded fangs completed the costume.

"Ah, my dark bride, are you watching your prey?" A voice said next to Lily, familiar even with its fake accent. She glanced over at Marcus who was dress as Dracula.

"Bride? No, young one. I am ancient, you did not create me." Lily replied before taking a sip of her "blood punch".

"Ah, come on, Lily," Marcus whined. "Play along. I'm Dracula, you can be Mina."

He moved closer to her placing an arm on the wall so he was half leaning over her. "You can be flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood."

"Cross land or sea to do your bidding? No thanks, Marcus."

"Miss Taggart," another familiar voice said to the other side of Lily. "Mister McTaggart."

"Dr. Crane," Lily greeted with relief in her voice. "I'm so glad you came. You are looking very sharp." He was wearing a black three-piece suit and tie, his usually messy hair was combed and slicked over as well. Dr. Crane had attempted a costume but Lily could not tell quite who or what he was supposed to be.

"Thank you, Miss Taggart. You look well put together."

Marcus gave a condescending chuckle. "'Well put together.' Don't worry, Lily, I think you look hot. Wanna dance?"

Lily narrowed her eyes just enough to show her annoyance. "No thank you, Marcus. Not now."

"Alright, I'll catch you later then, leave you two alone to stare awkwardly at everyone who is enjoying themselves." He laughed and left.

"He is such an ass," Lily muttered.

"Yet, you came here at his invitation." Dr. Crane commented taking a place next to Lily on the wall.

"Yeah, but I was hoping he was going to be distracted by everyone else." Lily finished her drink and looked at Dr. Crane. "Your hair is different, are you trying for a slight costume?"

"I am, minimalist but I believe it works. Can you guess? I will give you a hint it is a real person, not a fictional character."

Lily frowned continuing to examine him, trying to think. He offered up another hint. "An author that has gained a cult following."

"Are you...are you Lovecraft?" She asked hesitantly.

Dr. Crane smiled widely. "Precisely, very good."

Lily smiled as well. "I do remember you saying he his one of your favorite authors."

"And who are you," he inquired the smile still on his face.

"Oh, I'm just a regular vampire, not one in particular. Unless you can think of one that would fit."

Now it was Dr. Crane's turn to look over Lily. As he did so Lily felt a blush creep up her neck. After several long seconds of silence between them, Dr. Crane offered a suggestion. "Lilith. Mother of demons often portrayed with fiery red hair and also said to feed on the blood of men. A vampire."

Lily blinked. "That is actually a really good suggestion. Alright. Then I am Lilith."

At the front of the room, Dr. Pigeon was waving tell everyone to quiet down. Once the attention of the room was on him he smiled broadly. "I am so thrilled that all of you could make it. Such wonderful costumes too. And let's thank our Psi Chi chapter for providing the snacks and drinks."

There was a polite round of applause. "Now then, as is tradition, it is time for the sharing of ghost stories. If you would like to tell a story come to the front. Everyone else take a seat. Once we are all ready we will dim the lights and witness the terror!"

A few people chuckled before all started to move. A few people went to the front, Marcus, and Ned among them. Lily looked over to Dr. Crane. "Shall we sit?"

He glanced over at her. "You can. As long as I am dressed the part of Lovecraft, I will put the dread of the Old Ones in them."

Lily laughed and gave a nod. "I am sure your story will be the best." Moving off the wall she found a seat near the front. Dr. Crane stepped into line as the last person to share a story. When all had stopped moving Dr. Pigeon turned off the lights leaving the only source of light to be the flashlight held by the storyteller. The first to go was a young Junior undergraduate with the tale of Solomon Grundy, a classic in Gotham Lily learned. Next a third-year graduate student with a "personal" tale of an experience during her current internship at Arkham Asylum. A couple more students went with rather unremarkable and unoriginal stories. Marcus was next with a joke ghost story of the cursed term paper. Another bland storyteller went and then it was Dr. Crane's turn. He took the flashlight and pointed it towards the floor instead of on his face. It was far eerier.

"Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen," he said a dark grandiosity in his tone that Lily had not heard before. "Tonight I am going to instruct you on the nature of fear."

"Jonathan," Dr. Pigeon chuckled, "we want ghost stories not a lecture on fear."

"Stories?" Dr. Crane continued, in the same dark manner. "No. We all know ghost stories are not real. What is not real cannot harm us. Therefore, I will teach you fear with reality. My name is Howard Lovecraft and tonight you shall learn the nature of the Old Ones…"

Dr. Crane continued to tell his tale. It was truly like a lecture, one could believe he was giving facts, but they had the flourishes that made it a story. Lily was entranced by his voice. No matter what he spoke of - be it a writhing mass of tentacles, the eldritch horror, or a shredded mass of corpses - his tone never changed. Like a man who had seen all these horrors and become numb to them, he continued onwards.

As the minutes ticked by Lily started to feel the atmosphere of the room change. The air became tense with anxiety. Even in the dark, she heard people stiffen as though readying themselves to flee. Slowly the stench of fear rose in the room.

"Can you feel their eyes on you? All those eyes. Staring. Unblinking. They watch. They know. When you sense another presence in the room. It is them. When the hairs stand up on back of your neck without cause. They are there. We cannot escape them." Dr. Crane turned off the flashlight plunging them into darkness.

"Hear their dark whispers. The unnatural, guttural language. Shoggoth. Cthulhu. Azathoth. The Old Ones. This world will fall to them. Surrender to them. There is no escape. Surrender and you may be granted the mercy of a quick death. Their writhing masses are drawing near. They are coming. Listen."

Dr. Crane fell silent. The tension in the room was palpable. Lily's heart was thudding in her chest. Her skin felt hot, overly sensitive to the beads of sweat forming on the back of her neck. Suddenly, the flashlight flicked back on illuminating Dr. Crane's stoic face. "Thank you."

The uneasy silence of the room continued for several long seconds. Finally, Lily broke from her reverie and started to clap. The noise startled the others to action and they began to clap as well. Dr. Pigeon turned on the lights and the room breathed a notable sigh of relief. Without a word, though with a pleased sparkle in his eyes, Dr. Crane set the flashlight on the nearest table and moved back to the wall.

Lily got up as the others began nervously chatting. She joined Dr. Crane by the wall a thrilled expression on her face. "That was brilliant Dr. Crane! I had no idea you were such a talented storyteller! You put Lovecraft himself to shame."

"Thank you, Miss Taggart, you flatter me. All I did was summarize the mythos with a bit of added flair."

"No, no," Lily insisted, "it was more than that. The way you presented the story. Maybe you did not do it intentionally, but your voice. How calm and steady it was the whole time. Almost like a hypnotist's. And the use of the flashlight...sorry. I'm a little over excited. That was the perfect level of fear to get my adrenaline pumping. Just very excited."

"You need not apologize," Dr. Crane told her with an amused look. "But please, do not give away my secrets."

Lily gave him a playfully serious look. "Of course, Dr. Crane. Never."

Dr. Crane looked past Lily to someone approaching them. "Jonathan. Lily."

"Bill." Dr. Crane greeted Dr. Pigeon, fading from his face.

"Dr. Pigeon," Lily greeted as well her excitement quickly draining.

"That was some tale, Jonathan. I didn't know you could spin a yarn like that. You might be in the wrong profession. With talent like that, you should be causing terror not studying it. Isn't that right, Lily?"

"But surely, my study of the nature of fear assists me when I have the need to cause it." Dr. Crane replied. Lily stayed silent but Dr. Pigeon did not notice.

"Perhaps, perhaps. Still a brilliant story. You shall have to come every year now. I will not have us missing thrills like this."

"We shall see, I only came tonight because Miss Taggart requested."

"Well then, my dear," Dr. Pigeon said directly to Lily, "you shall have to request every year you are here. I insist upon it."

"Of course, Dr. Pigeon," she told him, her tone chilled.

"And don't you just look lovely," he continued really looking at Lily for the first time tonight. His sweeping gaze made her feel sick. "Very alluring but then vampires are creatures of seduction are they not? Did you come with Marcus, a couples costume?"

"No. That was incidental. I am Lilith. Mother of demons. The first vampire." Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Dr. Crane lips twitch into a quick smirk.

"A succubus, also." Dr. Pigeon added, a perverted glint in his gaze as he looked her over again.

"A woman that wouldn't submit to a man's desires." Lily retorted.

Dr. Pigeon gave a derisive chuckle. "If you say so."

"Miss Taggart, I just thought of something for our paper," Dr. Crane intervened. "If you will excuse us, Bill."

"Always working, yes, of course," Dr. Pigeon replied quickly. "Good job again, Jonathan." The older man left but not before his eyes raked over Lily one last time.

"Thank you, Dr. Crane," Lily said once Dr. Pigeon was gone.

"Naturally," he replied with an incline of his head. "I simply regret that I had to intervene for him to leave you alone."

Lily gave a small shrug. "That's life. A man will respect another man's request more than a woman's. Particularly, in affairs concerning the woman. When I was in undergrad, a few times I went out with my friends, men would hit on me. Mostly I was uninterested and told them so but they persisted. So eventually I had to pretend I had a boyfriend to get them to stop. Lot's of women have to do that."

"That is precisely what I mean. I regret that men do not respect a woman's wishes to the point where other men must intervene to cease unwanted attention. Men and women are equals, both equally capable. Not that I need to explain that to you."

"And yet, we still turn a blind eye." Lily referenced what they had seen last night.

Dr. Crane's lips tightened. "That has more to do with the power structure and bribes. If it were not guaranteed that nothing would change and all consequences would fall on us, I would report him in a heartbeat. I would have reported him when I was a student."

Lily was silent for a moment. Her eyes trained out over the crowd. "I believe you. There is a rotten taste in my mouth because of all this but I believe you. I suppose I am too self-centered to risk my own future to do the right thing as well. So there we are."

After a few moments of silence, Lily gave a small sigh. She had lost the taste for the party. "I believe I am going to go. These heeled boots are killing my feet and I do not believe anything will top your story the rest of the night."

"Allow me to walk you out. I have no desire to be here if you are leaving."

"Thank you, Dr. Crane," Lily replied. She felt nice knowing that Dr. Crane had come only because of her. Though Lily was aware her little crush on him could amount to nothing, it felt good knowing that she had made a connection to him in that way.

Together they left Lily waving farewell to a few people on the way out. The late October air was chilly and Lily was glad for her long sleeves and thick skirt. There were people waiting by the bus stop, undergraduates already drunk from pre-Halloween parties fun. They caught sight of Lily and began to catcall.

"Hey, baby!"

"Looking good!"

"Vampire, right? I got something you can suck!"

"Leave the stiff behind, I got a better one for you!"

Mouth set in a hard line Lily looked to Dr. Crane, who was looking at the boys with daggers in his eyes. After a moment Dr. Crane breathed in sharply and glanced to Lily. "A drive home?"

"Thank you, yes," Lily replied with relief. She had been hoping that he would offer. They both turned towards the parking lot, ignoring the boys completely. The catcalling continued for a bit but soon faded away as the boys became bored.

Lily wait as Dr. Crane cleaned the passenger seat of all papers and books. He held the door open for her as she got in before going around to the driver's side. Turning the car on Dr. Crane waited half a minute for the heat to start issuing from the vents before driving off.

"Darwin street, correct?" He inquired as they turned out of the parking lot.

"Yes…" As the passed the boys the catcalled again. This time their calls directed at Dr. Crane and how he was a "lucky bastard".

"Disgusting," Dr. Crane muttered under his breath.

"I don't see how any woman could sleep with oafs like those," Lily added in agreement.

"Simple, they aren't women. They are girls, immature like those boys, controlled by hormones and the unreasonable instinct to mate," he replied.

Lily chuckled. "Very true. Of course, us intellectuals have completely overcome base instinct and the influence of hormones."

"Of course," Dr. Crane said with such seriousness that Lily thought he was until she saw a smirk on his lips. There was a brief moment of silence before Dr. Crane spoke again. "It has always been my private belief that true intellectuals are separated out from the pretenders by how we control our impulses in favor of treating others with respect. Marcus and Dr. Pigeon may be intelligent but their behavior markedly shows they are not intellectuals."

"Do you do that then, Dr. Crane," Lily asked with a cheeky smile.

"Naturally. For example, if I were to compliment your beauty I would not leer at you and make lewd sexual advances that are not reciprocated. Better yet, because of the power difference in our relationship, I would not say anything at all." Dr. Crane stopped the car outside of her apartment building, putting it into park for her to get out. "All hypothetical, of course, if I wished to compliment your beauty."

Lily smiled a light blush coming over her cheeks. "Thank you for the ride, Dr. Crane. And thank you for not saying anything at all...I believe I follow your line of thought, I would do the same about your handsomeness. I will see you Monday."

Getting out of the car Lily went up to the front door of her building. Pulling out her keys she unlocked the door and stepped inside. Glancing back she saw that Dr. Crane sitting in his car staring out to the windshield. Though it was dark, Lily could swear that his face was bright red.


I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far! Next chapter will be posted towards the end of November.