Wow, two reviews! I guess I'm really sucking at this story. We'll see if I continue to write or not I guess. Hopefully by skipping all those dull background chapters that would have laid a solid foundation to the story, and jumping to the present, I will intrigue you at least a little.

"It's really quite difficult to be a murderer without killing people from time to time, you know."

Bucharest, 2007

As far back as Erik could remember, choices had been made for him. At birth, his entire destiny had been laid out the moment his mother decided that loving a child with such extreme differences would not be possible. During childhood, the constant rejection had thickened his skin, made his heart less susceptible to hope and need. In his teenage years the self imposed distance from other people had never seemed more unfair, and to be precise, it was the moment he heard Christine Dally singing that Erik realized he wanted to be normal more than he wanted anything else.

When Andras and his cult of obedient, dull witted followers had plowed their armored cars into Gus Dally's jeep and the police cruiser that Detective Kohn had been transporting him in, his destiny had once again been decided. He could still remember the unearthly jarring and screech of metal on metal. Glass had exploded all around him, but it was the image of a green jeep carrying Christine and Gus, hurtling across the highway multiple times that stayed in his mind.

It had been the last day of the trial, a day of much anxiety and then ultimate tragedy. He'd spent the night before alone in the shop until Christine had slipped out of the house to speak with him.

# - # - # - #

"Your father doesn't want you here," he'd said coldly. "Go back inside."

"My father knows I'm here," she had replied quietly. "I wanted to thank you for the music you gave me this summer, Erik. The last two months have been..."

Erik had stared down at the floor, wanting very much to know what the last two months had meant to her. He could never tell her what they meant to him, but surely she already knew. Sometimes his feelings were too difficult to hide, but he had never behaved inappropriately with her. Especially after Gus had given him an embarrassing speech on men's duty to protect the virtue of women.

"Been what?" Erik had finally prompted.

"Very special," she whispered shyly. "I wish that you could stay here. Maybe tomorrow..."

"Christine," he had sighed tiredly. It was the first time he had spoken her name to her face, and felt awkward again when she moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with him against the work cabinet. "After tomorrow I won't see you again. The trial has been a disaster. No one believes that I'm innocent!"

"I do!"

"Well what you believe doesn't matter," he said bitterly, then regretted it as hurt flashed across her features. "I didn't mean it like that..."

"Then what did you mean?"

Erik drew a deep breath, staring at her from the corner of his eye. "The only people that matter are the jury members. I'm going to be convicted tomorrow and locked away."

"No," she whispered, covering her mouth with one hand. "Please don't say that. I don't want that..."


"People like me don't get second chances. I've known from the beginning what would happen to me."

"It's not fair."

"The world is not fair."

Christine had touched his shoulder hesitantly, and he had looked over at her sharply, first at the small hand, then the blond headed owner who was looking bravely at him. "I will dedicate my first performance to you, if you wish."

His throat had tightened, and tears had suddenly stung his eyes. Erik was startled to find them, so ready to fall when it had been years since he had railed against his fate with such emotion.

"I would like that, Christine," he had agreed quietly.

She had not known what to say after that, afraid to say more in case he was wrong about the verdict. Erik's eyes had remained on her face, looking as if wanted to share a wealth of advice and secrets, but he had said nothing more.

# - # - # - #

Andras had pulled him from the smoldering wreckage of the squad car, and thrown him half unconscious in the back of a sport utility vehicle. Immediately he had felt a needle enter his arm and the world had gone dark.

When his eyes finally did open, he was laying on a long red runner in a gray stoned hall, looking like something out of a medieval picture. Sitting on a decorated throne was the man he'd encountered in the shop, and kneeling before him were twenty or so people, chanting nonsensical words. At his side, a woman with distinct Asian features and blood – red painted lips had smiled upon seeing movement from their new subject.

Defiant he had remained to their strange demands, until they had thrown him into a cell for three unrelenting years. Deprived of food, light, occupation, Erik had gone nearly mad listening to the sound of his own screams and little else. He'd finally broken when Lina had been allowed to take him to India.

Out of his cage for the first time, she had introduced him to the strange Aghori, a tribe which practiced cannibalism that he had not indulged in. She had also shown him hatred...murder...drugs. Lina was capable of great evil and even greater depravity. With her guiding his already twisted mind, darkness had been unleashed upon the world. She had chained his soul to the floor of Hell, and knowing there would never be light again, Erik had submitted to her will.

She had made a mistake though...thinking him completely over the edge, she left him unattended one night, and he'd escaped.

The first person he had tried to reach was Gus Dally, but no one had answered. After four years, Detective Kohn was retired from the force, the police station had informed him, but provided him with a home phone number. Surprised did not even describe what Navin had felt on hearing Erik's trembling voice through the phone, distorted by a bad connection.

# - # - # - #

"Where the hell have you been? Do you know how long I searched for you? How much trouble you are in?"

"I don't care about that. Tell me how the Dally's are," Erik had shouted into the phone.

"What...you don't know? You left us all there to die, Erik. Is your conscience just now bothering you?"

Snappishly Erik had informed him of the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, and stunned the Detective into silence. "Now tell me how they are. Is Christine...?"

"Christine is fine now," Detecive Kohn had said with a sigh. "She can walk again..."

"Oh, God," Erik had whispered through the phone. "She was paralyzed? Because of me?"

"Her legs were broken, but she has recovered completely. She's in college now. Juilliard."

Erik closed his eyes and nearly sobbed with relief. "And her father?"

"I'm sorry, Erik. Gus didn't survive the crash."

The phone had been left dangling in the street, and Erik had stumbled through the foreign city, blinded by grief. Three days later he had called back.

"I want you to find out everything you can about a man named Andras Kovechi," he had ordered Navin. "And everything about an order called The Guardians."

When he returned to Romania three months later, he had been armed with more than a rather unique lasso the natives of India had taught him to throw with lethal accuracy.