[ TT ] A child is kidnapped . Outraged , the monsters that live under their bed and in their closet vow to find them .

When I got to 342 Lilac Lane, I crept through the closet door, a liquid shadow. My dripping claws like crude oil grazed the jamb. Melding with the pitch corner of the room, I glanced at the bed. With the little ponies on the covers. 
 
 I expected to see a familiar tuft of red hair. The scraggly dark ginger coils and the galaxy of freckles on unexpected bronze skin. An admittedly endearing blend of two physically contrasting mature humans. 
 
 But there was nothing in the bed. Nothing at all. The window was strew open. The covers haphazardly thrown over several lumpy pillows. 
 
 I became aware of voices outside. I ghosted to the window, the red and blue flashing against and through my darkness. 
 
 The child was gone. 
 
 My job is to teach the children fear. Alertness. Self preservation. Self reliance. When even adult humans abandon them in their rooms, expect them to ignore their own terror, tell them it's their `` imagination'' or they're `` seeing things,'' it is I that they fear. 
 
 I do not harm. I never harm. I only teach. I am only fear. 
 
 Today Lorelei was learning fear from another. Unacceptable. 
 
 I sniffed. The little one. Cinnamon. Baby Magic soap. Dandelions. 
 
 I sniffed again. This time, not familiar. Tobacco. Wood, burning. Leather. Oil. Exhaust. Pine. Sweat. Blood. Spittle. A stranger. A deadman. 
 
 I felt rage smelt in me. My dark hand vibrated with it. I was it. 
 
 Like a bat I shot through the window sill crack and slipped into the night. 
 
 The smell of that soap guided me through different places. Far. I melded with the shadows of suburban houses. Then under cars on the boulevards. Through the metro area. The trash became more pronounced. The glitter of broken alcohol bottles signaled drunken crafts. 
 
 The strangers scent mix became stronger. I darted through the shadows until I was brought to a house. I melted into the corner of the door, the light above it broken. 
 
 Inside was a den of ill. Women laying about. Some bound. Others high. 
 
 I followed the scent of the little girl. Inside a room. In a bed without ponies. Instead a crusty duvet. 
 
 The man with her. He was standing there. 
 
 I was anger incarnate. The lights in the room burst. My power grew with the darkness. I flooded his mind, his vision, his soul with dark thoughts. With fear and wretchedness and disgusting things. I made him fear me the way she fear him. I made him a small girl in a foreign land sold away from her parents and made a slave. I made him cower and scream and experience the hell he was inflicting on others until he pissed himself. 
 
 The child was crying. But I told her to shush. She felt my familiar presence. 
 
 I brought my wrath upon the rest of the people. Except the victims. I can not save everyone. 
 
 I took Lorelei under the bed, and through the darkness until we were back on Lilac Lane. I left a note written in the darkest blood ink about the address. 
 
 I still keep an eye on Lorelei and her children to this day.
