3.

~ "I wonder why Cobb is so interested in this?" Ariadne said softly as she rolled lavender lotion over her hands and wrists. Looking at them with curiosity.

"I don't know. Whenever Cobb get's an idea in his head..." Arthur said as he climbed into their bed. "He get's possessed by it sometimes."

Since her terrible car accident, the Point Man had taken the Architect home with him. They made no formal declarations of this. At first, he was just helping her to get better from her accident. Then her night terrors. The intimacy they sometimes shared felt deeper to him then just the physical.

It was easy with Ariadne. She asked for no affirmations of his love. No promises. Accepting that tomorrow, this might all end between them.

"Are you coming to bed?" He asked as she was lost over looking at her hands and wrists.

"Hum? Oh yes." She said numbly. "I just... I had a funny dream."

"About what?"
"I think... I think cut myself on my hands." She said in a trance. "That I was bleeding on the floor."

Her mind came back down to Earth when she caught his worried expression in her mirror.

"I'm sorry." She forced herself to laugh. "It was just a dream."

He smiled at her. Looking inviting in their comfortable bed.

"So... if you want to sit this mission out... I'll understand. We all will. I mean after Gotham." He offered.

"No." Ariadne said forcefully. "I told you, I'm part of this Team. I go into the field with all of you."

She abandoned her night table and went to him. A brief reprieve from the things watching her in their hiding places.
"Besides, I think it helps. Going into the dream." She said as she snuggled into his capable arms. His long lean body felt comforting and safe around her.

"How so?" He whispered kissing her demurely on the neck. She cuddled deeper.
"I feel less... afraid. When I'm down there." She whispered. "I'm not afraid of the dark anymore." She told him.

"I know. That's good." He said softly. His hands lacing in her hair. His warm lips kissing away bad thoughts from her mind and she tumbled into the well of sleep.

~ It was dark. She had fallen asleep so quickly she had not realized Arthur had tuned off the light. She could hear them. Hissing and slithering on the floor.

"Arthur?" She whispered. She could not feel his arms around her. A terrible sense of being alone was upon her. His side of the bed was cold and empty. She was defenseless.

Still the hissing and movements in their dark bedroom continued. Like a frightened rabbit, Ariadne huddled perfectly still. Her eyes wide as her ears strained for the noises. For the whispers.

"And still we come, and still we come.

Marching to your door.

Hear us now, hear us now.

Crawling on your floor."

It was an eerie nursery rhyme song that the whispers sang in a communal voice. Getting closer and closer.

She could feel something moving across her bed. Sliding along the bed covers. Hissing and advancing in the darkness. She remained still. Her body tense. Afraid to look at the monster that had slithered into her bed. She could feel a cold heavy thing move over her body, snake like. Poised and ready to strike.

"Were here."

"Ariadne?" Arthur's voice came back as she could feel the terrible snake about to attack. She sat up as he turned on the light.

Nothing was there. No snake, no whispers. Their little room was empty.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up." He said kissing the top of her head as she looked wildly at their covers and the floor. Her breathing rapid as her heart was beating wildly.

"Are you alright?" he asked. Climbing back into bed.
"Yes, she said putting a hand to her chest. "Just... just a bad dream." She said sadly. Hoping he would buy it.

She had not been dreaming. She knew what she heard.

"Come here." He said with an amused little smile. "No more bad dreams." He said as she laid back into his arms.

She sighed as she let herself relax against his hard muscular body. As comfortable as any bed or pillow. She allowed her eyes to close.

Suddenly his warm skin was replaced by cold slimy scales and hissing. She opened her eyes to see her bed had become a pit of snakes. Writhing and moving over each other. Over her.

She screamed wildly as she tried to escape. Her panic making the serpents attack and bite her. Their cold bodies all over her, touching her skin.

She cried out in fear and pain as they bit her over and over.

"Ariadne!" Arthur's voice came back to her. She was free of their bed clothes. Her body huddled on the floor, Her back to the wall. She had pulled her knees up to her chin as she fought back the images of those snakes.
The Point Man was next to her. His eyes worried.

"What happened?" He asked. "Tell me what happened!"

His voice, normally so loving and kind was sharp and sever. She could never not do what he commanded when she spoke to her like that.

She looked over her body, her hands and wrists. Nothing. No bites, no blood. Her skin was perfect and free of marks or blemishes. Noting to indicate she had ever been bitten.
"I... I thought I saw snakes." She cried. Fat ugly tears coursing down her face as her panic took control of her body. "I... I thought..." She cried then as he held her. Terrible sobs that left her exhausted.

She wasn't sure how or when it had happened, Arthur taking her back to their bed. She was suddenly too worn out to care.

She fell into a dreamless void with no memory of nightmares.

~ "Arabella Marks perpetrated a rein of terror for months before she was caught 3 days ago." A somber looking doctor said. Cobb and his Extraction Team stood in a brightly lit office as a state appointed physiologist explained.
"It's very rare to capture a female serial killer. Especially one as complex as Miss Marks. Her killings were... ritualistic and brutal. Her victims were all women. All of them young with dark hair and eyes." He went on, looking worriedly at Ariadne.

Arthur's long frame moving slightly to conceal her from view.
"At the time of her capture," The gruff District Attorney chimed in, rolling his eyes at the doctor. "She had the blood of two more victims on her clothing. She explained to us that there are two more victims. That they are still alive and won't be unless she is remanded to a privet mental hospital for life instead of the death penalty. If we agree, then she will tell us their location."

"Naturally, we don't want to let this monster live out her life in luxury." Cobb said. His brow pulled into a deep scowl.

"Is there any chance these two women are still alive? If they even existed at all?" Arthur asked. His tone pessimistic.

"They did a run on the blood." The District Attorney said. Liking Arthur's intelligent questions. "The blood found there did not match any of the victims found dead in her basement or underneath her floor boards."

"She put them under her floor?" Ariadne asked. "Like... like in Poe?" Her voice sounded small and mouse like as her own heart started beating loud enough for all the room to hear.

Boom, Boom, Boom, You wicked girl! Boom, Boom.

As if the Forger could read her mind or hear her heart beating like in the story, he turned to the Architect. A smile on his face.
"The beating of the hideous heart." He said.

"We know Miss. Marks kept her victims alive for days before she strung them up and exsanguinated them. She normally held them is a disused industrial building. She had privacy there. Could perform the blood letting. She would then take their bodies back to her home and stash them under the dining room floor. If these last victims are still alive we must do everything in our power to save them, Mr. Cobb." The District Attorney said. Looking suddenly worn out and defeated.

He looked at the Team with worried eyes.

"We are preparing for trial right now. We need witnesses. Testimony. We can not have this... evil let lose on a technicality." He sighed. "I have to have some... happiness from all this death. From pulling those women from under that house."