Thank you to all those who reviewed the last chapter - if you haven't, please let me know what you thought of it. It got loads of hits, but only a few reviews :(

I need to thank Lily Moonlight for her help with the last chapter and for general discussion!!

Again, this is a short chapter, but it just seemed to come to a natural break - hope you think it's okay.

Chapter 18

The Day Dances

The day dances a merry jig as people try to keep up it's pace, as they attempt to squeeze a multitude of activities into a short space of time and become frustrated when not everything is done. It casts its shadows over them, lending glimpses of its cousin, the night, to darken the ways in which things are perceived, concealing truths and wisdom from those who need to know them.

Cats are not servants of the daytime. For a house cat, sunrise may bring the opening of a can of food, and sunset the promise of the return of the feeder, but it is only the human that is controlled by the light. For night time brings its own rewards, a time of hunting and hiding in shadows, long, sleek bodies waiting to pounce on unsuspecting mice and rodents.

Stella hadn't noticed the cat the last time she had been in Brian Goddard's house. It looked at her for a moment, before twitching a long and bushy black tail and strolling away from her, as if she was nothing special enough to pique his interest.

"That's Winston," Elior said, guiding her into the sitting room, shards of lights falling in from between open curtains and catching the dust as it rose and fell with the currents of air. "He was staying with my sister, but there's more mice here to keep him happy, and I wanted some company."

Stella sat down and looked directly at the old man. "I need to know everything you've got on what your son's been up to," she said. "People are loosing their lives and we need to stop it."

Elior nodded. "I can tell you what I think I know. Bear in mind, my son is a compulsive liar, so the information he's given me may not be accurate." His eyes never left hers as she nodded, showing she understood. "Brian would house those who wanted to leave here, a sort of half way house. He'd worked out David's scheme years ago when David would have a band of followers at the university. He'd give extra lectures and a fair number of people would turn up. At first Brian's response seemed like jealousy, although he was a popular tutor himself. Then David began telling me about how he was going to show the world that geniuses didn't have to be evil – by that he was referring to Hitler, Saddam Hussein - dictators. David wanted power. He's a good speaker, and very enigmatic. He has charisma and a few people began to notice that, Paul Murphy being one of them. Paul never fell for his words, but he saw that there was money to be made, and he encouraged David to only hunt to students who had cash.

"They fell out about it countless times as David wanted to build an army who would listen to him preach about death and how to defeat it. His condition, his muscular dystrophy, has always made him fear dying as well as making him obsessed with being in control. He cannot control his own body, so he has to control others instead." Elior stopped speaking and swallowed. Stella was aware he looked tired and gaunt in his face. She realised the guilt he must be feeling – it was his son who was masterminded the deaths of many people.

"It's not your fault," she said and the old man shook his head.

"I know," he said simply. "The girl he's with, Rachael McKinsey, she's different."

"What do you mean?" Stella said.

"She's his step-daughter. His wife had a child before she met David. She left the girl with her father as she was rather intent on her career and she'd never been particularly maternal. When Rachael was sixteen she came back to live with them and that was when the marriage started to go wrong. David became obsessed with Rachael and the fact that he could never have her," he looked Stella squarely in the eye. "He wanted power. People near him wanted the same thing and the money to go with it. Rachael… I had no idea what she wanted." His eyes left hers and sought the window, looking into the beaming rays of light. When he next spoke it was with a voice that knew what the ending to his story must be. "As Leo Tolstoy said, "In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power, but the love of power is not connected with goodness, but with the qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, and cruelty." That's David, I'm afraid, although somewhere along the line I think he actually started to believe in what he preached." He stood up and walked to the window, drawing the curtains and shading out the light. "Somewhere, and if I knew I'd take you there myself, he has a building. His people were taken to it when they were drugged. If they wanted to leave they were taken from it blindfolded. They could never say where it was. I think there are a handful who 'recruit'; the more powerful ones, the ones David – or rather Rachael – trusted. Before he died, Brian was trying to find out exactly who they were. He wanted to build up concrete evidence to take to the police."

"He also had another list of people – names of people who had been reported missing," Stella said, trying to pull more information from Elior.

Elior nodded. "Again, he wanted as much as he could. If he had gone to you sooner he may still be alive."

Stella stood up, Winston the cat slinking into the room and jumping straight into the place where she had just been sat.

Elior smiled slightly, although his eyes retained the same pool of sadness. "Cats have their own agendas and choose never to share it. Good luck, Miss Bonasera. I think you might need it." He sat down, staring into space as she left the room to see herself out.

-&-

"She's gone."

The words echoed around David Rostow's head like a giant roll of thunder. He pressed his hands to his face, forcing the skin of his cheeks upwards. If he could've, he'd have stamped his feet in anger, but the power to do that had long since left him.

"How could she have gone? She was meant to be asleep!" He looked at Rachel, tall, beautiful Rachael, the apple of his eye. She was wearing some designer label, expensive he knew, but he had always wanted to give her everything.

He wondered what he had gotten in return.

"Jackie's not been happy for some time. I told you she wanted to leave. You should have let me end it for her," Rachael said, leaning back in the chair, her long hair dropping down toward the floor.

"There's been too much blood already," he said, a hand running through his hair in exasperation. "If you hadn't have drawn so much attention to us then there would have been no problem in getting rid of her, or even just releasing her like we've done with the others."

"But Brian Goddard was onto us, David. He knew about the money and Paul – he had to go. Him and that boyfriend of his," she looked at him with piercing blue eyes and stood up, making her way round to behind his wheelchair. He felt her hands on his shoulders as they began to massage. She knew how to soothe him; always had done since she was sixteen.

"Brian Goddard could have been bought. He never would have gone to the police. That was what we talked about. He just wanted money. Like Paul did, like you do…" he spat the words and wheeled backwards, forcing her to move.

"Look," she said, her voice still calm. "You lead the little poppets into the darkness, pretend that's what we're doing too and then we can go – disappear – vamoose! We've no Paul to hinder us and we've a lot of money. We can do whatever we like."

David laughed sardonically. Sometimes Rachael was just like her mother had been. "By now the police will know everything; everything about the accounts and they will have been frozen," he looked up at her, his face ashen.

"The police are stupid," she said. "Pretty boy and pretty girl detective will think they're being superheroes. They'll arrange some raid – if they think they know where we are – and they'll 'enter the darkness' with the rest of the poppets. We've got it all set up." She looked triumphantly at him, her eyes ablaze. "Besides, Jackie's probably ended up in the nearest asylum by now and they'll be paying no attention whatsoever to the crap coming out of her mouth. They won't know where we are." She smiled, moving closer to him again, her hand touch his head and her hair falling onto his shoulder.

"I should go speak to the people," he said, still in no mood for her caresses.

She nodded, ceasing all contact. "You go – speak to the minions." She smiled, and at that point he understood how she could kill so many in such cold blood.

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Sarah :)