Charlie didn't waste any time. She was back here for one reason and one reason only, to find Vaggie and bring her home. First she would talk to Levana and get her to tell her what happened to Vaggie. Afterward she would convince Vaggie to come back home and they would never come to this place ever again. She headed straight for the castle and raced inside, her eyes darting everywhere for Vaggie or Levana. She didn't find them here, she didn't find anyone here. The palace seemed to be completely deserted. Empty and quiet, too quiet. That was never a good sign.

"Vaggie." She called out. "Vaggie are you here?"

No one answered her.

"Vaggie! Vaggie please answer me!"

Again there was no reply.

"Vaggie I know you're here! Listen to me, you have to come back with me! Your mother is worried sick about you, she has the police and everyone searching the whole town! Maybe even the whole state! Please come back with me!"

Still nothing.

She started to check the rooms in the corridor. A lot of the doors were locked, she tried to forcibly open one. She pulled at the handles, planted her foot and forced with all her might but it was no use. The door wouldn't budge. None of them would.

"What is going on here?" She thought. "Why are all the doors locked?"

Suddenly she heard some music coming from the way back of the corridor. She slowly followed the music, making sure to keep her eyes open for anything unusual or suspicious. Getting closer, she recognized the music as opera. Italian opera to be exact.

She was led to a door at the end and this one was unlocked. She gave the door a light push and it opened to reveal Mia sitting alone and listening to some records.

"Mia." She said.

Mia turned off the record and slowly turned around to face Charlie. She seemed to look very sickly, which you would think is hard to tell from someone who's wearing a mask but something about her just didn't seem well. The way she stood and moved, it was just so weak.

"You came back?" She spoke very slowly this time around. "I didn't think you would."

"Mia I'm looking for Vaggie. Do you know where she is? Did she come back here?"

"I can't say."

"What do you mean you can't say? Does that mean you don't know where she is, or you do but you can't tell me?"

"You shouldn't be here." She said ignoring the question. "You should leave."

"Why?" Charlie asked. "Why should I leave?"

"I can't say. There's only so much I am allowed to say."

Charlie couldn't see any strings but she thought Mia looked like a marionette. A puppet that had no will of her own and could only move and speak based on someone else's control. Yet she could make a very small shred of willpower buried deep inside Mia. Fighting to regain control but being held back by so many invisible strings. And Charlie had a pretty good idea on who the puppet master was.

"What did she do to you?" Charlie asked her with concern.

Mia just put a finger to her lips.

Then Charlie felt a pair of cold hands rest themselves on her shoulders.

"Why hello Charlie, what a wonderful surprise."

Charlie jumped back startled, turning around to find Levana standing there. She seemed very pleased with herself about something. Like the cat who caught the canary.

"Everyone at the theater simply adored your performance. So much so that the theater troupe insists that you play the lead in their next show. Would you be interested?"

"No thank you." Charlie said, keeping her distance. "I'd like to know where Vaggie is. She's been missing for four days and no one has seen or heard anything from her."

"Well there's really nothing to worry about. Vaggie is perfectly safe and happy with her father."

"Excuse me?"

"Yes. When she visited me last, she told me how much she missed her father and I felt so awful for her that I decided to reunite them. They've gone back to El Salvador to live as a family and open their own art gallery."

"That's not possible." Charlie said. "The police spoke with Vaggie's father yesterday, she's not with him and when they found him he was nowhere near El Salvador."

"Well of course he would lie and hide her from them. He wouldn't want that cruel and heartless ex wife of his to take his little girl away."

"Vaggie's mother is not cruel and heartless, and she would never keep Vaggie from her father if he really did want to see her."

Levana's smiling mouth twitched a little.

"Are you calling me a liar young lady?"

"I want to know where Vaggie is."

"I told you where she is."

"But that doesn't make sense. Even if her father did lie, the police would have found her with him. They searched his apartment, checked his phone records and emails, and spoke to everyone he knew."

"If you don't believe me, I'll prove it to you."

She directed Charlie into the drawing room of mirrors, the one she had brought Charlie to the last time she was here. She brushed thesurface of the mirror with her long, bronze-colored fingers. Itclouded over, as if a dragon had breathed on it, and then itcleared.In the mirror she could see the inside of an apartment where Vaggie and an older man who she recognized as her father based on photos she had seen, were painting together. Laughing and smiling, doing things that one would expect a father and daughter to do if they were close.

"See?" Levana said.

But Charlie was still skeptical. She was seeing it but she just couldn't believe it. The way Vaggie's mother had the cops looking for her, there was no chance they could have missed finding her when they interrogated Ernesto. Also how was Levana even able to find Ernesto when Inez couldn't even do it without assistance from the police?

"How did you get them together?" Charlie asked. "Vaggie's father pretty much disappeared after the divorce."

"It's a power I have my child." Levana said sweetly. "To find the lost loved ones of my children and bring them back together. I can do that for anyone. Even you."

"What do you mean?"

"I can reunite you with your mother and father."

Charlie became as still as a statue, not sure if she had actually heard what Levana had said. Did she actually say that she could bring her and her parents back together?

"No you can't." Charlie said. "My parents are dead."

"My powers are greater than life and death." She boasted. "I know what you want most in all the world, to be with your mother and father again. I can make that happen. I can make that dream real. All I need is two little things from you."

Charlie didn't like where this was going.

"Your eye and your heart."

"Do not give up your heart or your eyes, no matter what she promises you."

"No." Charlie said recalling Alastor's words. "No I don't think I want to part with those."

"But darling bringing back someone you love, especially two people you love takes a lot of magic. Sacrifices must be made." Levana said.

"Parting with an eye is difficult enough but my heart? I'll die without my heart."

"Don't worry, you'll still be able to see and you'll live just fine without your heart. I have something to replace both organs. You'll gain more than you'll lose. Trust me."

To prove her point she brushed her fingers against the mirror again and this time smoke filled the room. The smoke started to rise up and shape-shift into two figures. Then puff, the smoke blew away like clouds and there stood Charlie's parents. There stood Lucifer and Lilith Morningstar, alive again. Looking exactly how their daughter remembered them.

Charlie couldn't believe her eyes. This couldn't be real. Her parents were dead. She had been there when they died in the car accident. She watched them get buried in the ground at the funeral. It couldn't be them, it just couldn't be. Yet there was a tiny doubtinside her, a small bit of false hope that by some miracle they had truly come back.

"Mom? Dad?" Her voice spoke before her brain could administrate logic.

The two figures smiled at her and the one who resembled her mother reached out to her.

"Oh Charlie, we've missed you so much."

"Mom!"

For a moment, Charlie's emotions got the better of her reasoning. She she ran forward, eager andrelieved. She threw her arms around the woman's waste, and for a split second she was so happy. But then the felt the figure's arms hug her and she didn't feel any love. She felt touch but there was no love with it. She didn't feel any love coming from the woman who held her. And Lilith may have been dead for sometime but a child never forgets what it feels like to be held by their real mother and this didn't feel the same at all.

Charlie broke away from embrace. Tears filled her eyes as she looked up on the figures in horror.

"These are not my parents!" She turned around to face Levana angrily. "Is this your idea of a sick joke?! What is wrong with you?!"

She saw a flash of real anger cross Levana's face like summer lightning. Furious that Charlie had spoken to her like that, instead of realizing how very cruel indeed it was to create this kind of an illusion.

"How dare you speak to me that way!"

"How dare you do this to someone who's watched her parents die and still hasn't fully recovered!" Charlie snapped. "You're sick!"

"Apologize at once!" Levana ordered.

"No!" She refused.

"I'll give you to the count of three. She raised her fingers to count and Charlie saw her arms began to change. They became bigger, longer, as if they could grab something and squeeze the life out of it. "One." The skin was becoming bony, almost like it was starting to decay. "Two." The nails grew even longer, as long as a knife blade and they curled like the talons of a buzzard. "Three!"

She screamed in a dreadful voice that Charlie was sure couldn't possibly belong to something of this world and she lunged forward to either strike or snatch the girl. But suddenly and without warning, Mia tripped Levana and threw herself on to her when she fell down. Levana let out another terrible scream.

"Run!" She told Charlie. "Run to the bridge! It's your only chance! Hurry! I can only delay her for so long! Run and don't look back!"

Charlie ran as fast as she could. She bolted through the corridor and out the castle, through the woods, ducking and jumping over anything that might get in the way, finally making it across the bridge. But she still didn't stop running. She ran and ran all the way home. She even ran up the stairs to the house and finally stopped once she was safe inside her bedroom.

She dropped on to her bed and after taking a moment to catch her breath, she began to cry. What Levana had shown her was despicable and dreadful. It was like losing her parents all over again. That stunt was all Charlie needed to see to finally recognize what Levana really was. A cruel, sick, and evil woman who clearly didn't have any real love for children. No one who truly loved a child would do something so awful.

She cried herself to sleep that night, wishing that what she had seen could just be nothing more than a nightmare. But what she didn't know was that this nightmare was going to last longer than just one night.