"I am right HERE. You have walked past me TWICE now."<br/><br/>The clipped bellow issued forth from a man who seemed to have dressed for the occasion this morning, if the occasion were skulking about an enormous dilapidated mess of a house, finding a pair of errant servants, and then introducing them to the business end of a fireplace poker for an hour and twenty minutes. He held the said fireplace poker in his hand now, a twisted rusted thing that refused to glow any less than red, though it hadn't seen the inside of a fireplace in a fortnight. It was his Wednesday morning poker.<br/><br/>The notion of putting it to its proper function, though, did not raise the spark of interest in him that it might otherwise. Hurting the Tweedle twins was like fucking a corpse. All well enough if there was nothing better, but they'd remember nothing of it afterward, and so it was hardly worth the energy. You don't paint masterpieces on blotter paper and then wipe your arse with them. Not on Wednesdays.<br/><br/>He somewhat reluctantly dropped the poker onto the floor, a destination it reached only by way of a three-legged divan, a teetering pile of 33 1/3 bluegrass record albums, and finally a loose collection of crumpled legal notices, which quickly burst into flame at the contact. He absently kicked at the fire with one broad flat leather loafer, succeeding in sending sparks skittering across a variety of other flammable substances. Oh well, this room was a loss anyway. He was moderately certain he'd been urinating in here for a week or so, the nearest WC being presently occupied by the decaying corpse of a pig.<br/><br/>Potentially a pig, he reminded himself. He never had taken the bag off its head.<br/><br/>Yes, beating the twins would not have satisfied any of his serious urges for more than an hour. If Cat were here... but he'd sent her away, seeking the biscuit she'd eaten last Tuesday. Such a lovely girl, Cat. So...<em>pliable</em>. She would be back, of course. She always came back. If there was one thing you could count on in Wonderland.... Well, truly there wasn't. Nix on that.<br/><br/>The rising smoke reached his nostrils, and he wondered idly when the last time was he'd burned a man alive. His mouth watered at the thought, almost tasting the uniquely sweet smell of the memory. Too long, far too long. "Girls!" he announced, "I require a tart. Someone with a little flesh on their bones this time." He addressed himself to the empty space equidistant between their heads, instead of the almost equally empty spaces between their ears. It was a time-saving habit; he'd long since grown tired of switching his gaze every few words. "Bring me something nice, and I'll read you girls a sonnet by the fire. You'd like that, eh? A bit of the old Willy, perhaps?" He waited for a reaction in vain. Useless. He almost bent to retrieve the poker.<br/><br/>Where the hell was Cat? It had been -- he checked his pocketwatch -- almost seventeen minutes. Give or take a day.