Chapter IX

The Rabbit Hole

It took a great deal of concentration but she transported herself out of her subterranean prison. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and her spine trembled with effort but she appeared in the middle of what looked like a library. Typical of Regina, to lock her underneath a center of learning. She had probably thought it was amusing, a metaphor for knowledge and power. Once she would have chuckled, now it just burned in her stomach. The arrogance of her one-time friend knew no end.

She stalked through the tall shelves and searched for the exit. She had to get a staff or wand, or something to use as a focus for her magic. Not having access to her full abilities was intolerable. She had so much destruction to wreak and she wanted to enjoy every minute of it. She found the door and was thrilled to see that it was dark outside. Oh, she had missed the night sky. The dark blackness dotted with stars and the soft moonlight. Maleficent adored the night, it was a time for mischief, magic and merriment. It was less harsh and unforgiving then the bright light of the day. She stepped out into the night and was shocked at what she saw.

Everything was so clean, so orderly, and so different. Where was she? She turned around to look for any clues. The sign over the library declared her to be in Storybrooke. Maleficent chuckled bitterly, what a ridiculous name for a cursed town full of fools and forgotten heroes. She started walking on streets made of stone and was relieved that there was no muck or mire to muddy her shoes. Sanitation had certainly come a long way while she'd been trapped as a dragon. Regina had always loathed messiness, which had been something they'd agreed upon once upon a time. She walked through the empty street and marveled at what she saw. One of the storefronts was full of mirrors that had moving pictures, but it was not magic. Something else. She tilted her head and watched a small girl with gold curls call herself a "Honey Boo Boo" whatever that was. The Dark Curse had certainly made things strange.

She walked past the stores, her dress and cloak dragging behind her. She paused again at another window and her brows rose.

"Oh that's very nice."

It was a seamstress's shop, but the dresses behind the glass were nothing like what she had seen before. They were sinfully short and decadently delicious. Not a corset or petticoat in sight. There were no ruffles, there weren't even sleeves to pin ruffles upon. It was something completely different: slinky, sexual, revealing and Maleficent liked it. Besides, she doubted there were many women running around in full length gowns if this was more the style. She couldn't afford to catch Regina's attention too early, not before she was good and ready for Her Majesty. Still, though, she wanted that dress. There were three of the dressed draped on headless dummies that looked like bloodless corpses in the night. The one of the far right was purple, her color. She pressed her hands against the smooth, cold glass. Magic made many things possible, it was all a matter of emotion, and emotions came in so many decadent flavors. Love, hate, lust, hope, fear, rage, blood lust, an orgy of emotions with endless uses. At the moment the over powering emotion that was rushing through her was greed. She wanted the dress. She wanted her revenge. She wanted a drink. She wanted the cursed town of Storybrooke to fall down and worship her. She wanted Regina broken and chained like a dog at her feet. She wanted the wretched blonde bitch impaled on a sword, bleeding and begging for mercy. Basically, she wanted it all. Right now, she wanted the dress more than anything.

She focused and felt the small breeze twist around her. Her long flowing clothes disappeared and were replaced by vibrant purple clothe that clung to her like a second skin. She ran a hand through her hair and stopped at the headpiece, the faux crown she had always wore. It simply wouldn't do here. She plucked it off her head and clenched it in her fist. It melted and twisted into a bracelet that twisted half-way up her arm: wings, claws, scales, an iridescent jeweled dragon that clung to her. She had the dress and she looked at her ghostly reflection in the window glass, and smirked. "Not bad." She turned to look at her side and ran her hand down her flat stomach, "Not bad at all." Now she needed that drink.

She had been in his arms at the end. When the forest had crept up the streets and threatened to swallow the town whole, Belle had been his once more. Beautiful, sweet Belle with her kind blue eyes and her soft lips. He had cured her just to die with him. He was a selfish coward, a bastard, really. She had kissed him anyway and for a moment the world could have gone straight to hell because she was in his arms.

"You lost your son."

She had not berated him or demanded to know why, or asked him to protect her. She had set aside everything that she must have been feeling to comfort him. Then it had ended and she had been gone. He had awoken alone, in his bed, just like he had every day for the past twenty-eight years. The town had been saved, different but the same. Something had happened in the mine. At first he had thought Regina had stopped the diamond with her life. A fail-safe device. Regina had always been a clever witch. She was very adept at finding new uses and loopholes in spells, augmenting and tweaking spells until they were distinctly her own. She hadn't bothered to inform him of this device, of course. It had been put in place to stop him, he was sure. Who else would she have been worried about during the curse? She had so foolishly created the device and then let it fall into the wrong hands, it was only fitting that it take her life.

Then, when he'd taken his customary walk through town he started to hear the talk. The Mayor and The Sheriff were at it again, they said. Swan had made Mills so angry that she had literally fainted in the middle of Granny's Diner. So she had survived, though she had not come through unscathed. Fainting, really, what sort of Evil Queen showed such weakness? He chuckled at the thought, but then his mirth disappeared. Something was off. The people looked the same, acted the same and the town flowed with the same sedate, sleepy pace that it always had. Exactly as it always had. His hand clenched around the handle of his cane as he connected the dots.

The diamond had not acted as it should have. Something had changed the very fabric of the magic the fail safe had been created with. Storybrooke had not been reclaimed, it had been reset. The Dark Curse, his curse, had been recast. Only it had never meant to be cast in this world. The curse was meant to function in a world without magic. There was magic now, strong and potent, in Storybrooke and Regina, whether she knew it or not, was connected to Storybrooke. Still, though, to recast a curse as powerful as his had been with no preparation should have been impossible.

He needed to talk to Regina, but had other matters to see to first. He needed to find Belle. When he found the library abandoned he tried the Diner only to find that she was not there either. There had only been a hung-over Ruby Lucas, her temperamental grandmother and a dead man. Sheriff, or should he say Deputy now, Graham was alive again. The seemingly impossible had happened. Magic could not bring back the dead. Neither, as Frankenstein had learned, could science.

What had Regina done?

Nobody remembered anything. They were cursed once more to be ordinary citizens in an ordinary town in Maine. There were no princesses or knights, no fairies and no dwarves, just school teachers and nuns and janitors. Where, though, was his Belle?

He had a sinking feeling in his gut that if he waited long enough, he'd know exactly where to find her.

Lacey leaned over the pool table and lined up her shot, very aware that more than one pair of eyes were on her ass and not the game. It was too easy to take their money, they were practically giving it to them at this point.

"Eight ball, left side pocket."

The clack of her stick on the cue ball was familiar and comforting, so was the chunk of the ball rolling into the home she had designated for it.

"Pay up, boys." Ruby, now dressed in red leather pants that fit like a second skin and a shirt that was probably illegal in several countries, held out her hand and Michael and Tim begrudgingly slapped forty dollars into her palm.

Lacey straightened up and leaned against her cue, "Tequila shots?" Ruby only grinned in response before turning on her sky-high boot heel and walking towards the bar. She watched, unabashed, as the taller brunette walked away and even tilted her head for a slightly better angle. Ruby Lucas walking away was one of the best views in Storybrooke and she enjoyed it immensely.

One of these days she was going to have those sinfully long legs wrapped around her waist. Maybe tonight, Lacey mused, as she drank the last of her draft beer. They had been flirting and undressing one another with their eyes, making sly innuendos and dirty suggestions to and about each other for as long as she could remember. Something was going to have to give, and soon.

The men around Storybrooke were slow and dumb, small town rubes with scrubbed clean faces and calloused hands. She and Ruby had been talking about going to Boston for ever, why hadn't they done it yet? They should blow this shit-hole town and just go. Only Ruby, as wild as she was, couldn't leave her grandmother. Lacey sighed, and no matter how much she hated their little crappy little town by the sea, she couldn't leave Ruby.

The waitress returned with a tray lined with six shots, three for each of them, and lime wedges.

"You ready for this?"

Lacey eyed the other woman as she picked up a lime wedge in one hand and a shot glass in the other. "Are you?"

She stepped closer and Ruby lifted the glass to her lips. She was close enough to smell the stout Mexican alcohol, the citrus of the lime and a warm earthy aroma that was all Ruby. Damn but the woman was sexy. She tipped the glass and Lacey let the tequila burn down her throat. When the glass moved from her lips it was quickly replaced by the lime. When she bit into it her lips grazed Ruby's fingers and heard the other woman pull in a sharp breathe.

"Belle?"

Then hand, not Ruby's, descended on her shoulder and jerked her back. She rounded on whoever it was, ready to fight.

"What the hell is your probl-"She stopped mid-sentence because of all of the people in Storybrooke, she had not expected the hand to belong to Mr. Gold.

"Mr. Gold?"

She felt arms slide around her midriff and she felt Ruby's front pull tight against her back. She couldn't help but smile at that. Gold was, according to the gossip, very dark, very quick-tempered and he owned half the town. She wasn't afraid of him, intrigued perhaps, but not afraid. Ruby's automatic move to protect her, though, was just a little bit sexy.

"What do you want, Gold?" The quiet, almost sub vocal, growl that accompanied Ruby's words vibrated through her and she felt a surge of arousal course through her body.

"or is it Lacey?"

He sounded odd, like he wasn't sure who she was. "Lacey. My name is Lacey."

She wasn't sure why but he looked upset at her declaration. "I beg your pardon" his voice sounded different all of the sudden, like a defeated darkness, but that didn't make any sense. "I confused you for someone else."

He turned and limped away and Lacey watched him from the warm comfort of Ruby's arms. "Creepy old bastard." The brunette's words were hot against her ear and she chuckled, "Creepy enough to make me ready for another shot." The arousal pulsed through her now and she couldn't control her impulses, "Maybe a body shot or two." Ruby tightened her grasp around her and let out a hum of approval.

"No one gets me like you do, Lacey." The statement was so loaded with possible meanings and innuendo that she didn't even know where to begin.

The drinking establishment was easy to find, she just kept walking in the direction that the drunks stumbled from. Some things never changed. She chuckled at the name and the tavern's logo. Everything connected back to their world, it seemed. Jefferson's hat and the white rabbit he'd told her stories of seemed wildly out of place in this sleepy hamlet. She stepped inside and was instantly hit by the smells of sweat, alcohol, and smoke. A man bumped into her on his way out and it took everything she had not to round on him and rake her claws, finger nails, down his face to punish and mark him for his impudence.

When he looked at her, a scraggly, sour man in all black, there was a flash of recognition in his beady eyes. She did not know this man with a cane, but something about him felt familiar. Magic crackled about him in a way that tickled a long-forgotten memory of her past.

"Watch where you're going."

He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but then closed it and left. Perhaps he recognized her. She hadn't spent her entire life locked in the Forbidden Fortress or beneath a small town library after all. She had been known and she had been feared. She was the beast haunted children's' nightmares. She should kill him on principle, but murder was messy work and all she really wanted was a drink. What was he going to do anyway? Go screaming through the town? This looked like a place that wouldn't take kindly to talk of witchcraft and dragons, the man would be scoffed at as a drunk and a fool. Ironic that the truth would be called a bold-faced lie in this new reality Regina had fabricated.

She looked around and took the scene before her in. It looked like no tavern she'd ever been to. Not that she had frequented many taverns, but she knew what the average tavern looked like: straw on the floor, mangy dogs winding between people's legs, the stink of sour mash and unwashed men and whores. She walked to the highly polished bar and marveled at the many bottles behind it. Such variety, it made her heart thud a little faster. Oh she was going to enjoy this.

"What can I get you?"

She could feel the man's eye sweep across her, taking in her decadently displayed assets in. "What do you recommend?"

Before the barkeep could answer another voice beat him to it.

"The beer is shit."

Maleficent looked to her right. The speaker was a lanky brunette with fire red streaks in her long hair.

"The wine is worse."

Her companion, another woman whose dress actually showed more skin then her own, chuckled.

Ah, these women knew what they were talking about. "So what do you two recommend?"

The shorter brunette flicked her tongue across her lips, "Seven Princesses."

The other brunette nodded enthusiastically, "Seven liquors that dance all the way down. It's the specialty here."

Her eyebrows rose, she might kill Regina just for keeping her locked away from such wonders as a drink with seven alcohols in it. The Evil Queen knew how much she enjoyed her spirits.

"Three then, one for me and the others for my two friends."

She settled herself onto the padded stool and rested her chin on an open palm.

"I'm new to Storybrooke."

The brunettes exchanged glances, and she had a feeling a silent conversation. Finally the shorter brunette spoke again, "God, why would anyone voluntarily come to Storybrooke?"

Maleficent threw her head back and laughed, she laughed heartily for the first time in decades. She liked this one, she had spunk.

"Oh it's not voluntary. I'm here on some pressing business, but I was hoping to unwind and have a little bit of fun before I start causing chaos."

A tall glass with seven layers of color was carefully placed on the bar in front of her.

"Well if you're looking for fun or chaos, Ruby" He placed an identical drink in front of the tall brunette, "and Lacey" the shorter brunette, "are your girls." He paused, "I'll go ahead and start you ladies a tab."

Ruby picked up her glass, "To new friends, then." Lacey lifted hers as well, "To fun." Maleficent picked up her own drink, "To chaos."

They threw back the drinks in one long pull and it was like an explosion in her mouth. Seven colorful liquors, true to Ruby's words, danced all the way down her throat to hit her stomach with a splash of liquid heat. Three glasses slammed back onto the bar almost simultaneously. Maleficent licked her lips to catch any stray drops of alcohol. "Another round?"

Lacey chuckled, "Oh I like the way this woman thinks."

Maleficent felt her lips tug into a smile, "Mal. You can call me Mal."

Author's Note: I cannot even begin to explain how much I enjoy writing Lacey. Don't get me wrong, I like Belle too, but Lacey is so much fun!