"Selina Sarrrdi. Why must you look so beautiful?" Elias traced Selina's collarbone with the sharp tip of his talon. The nap she took had been short but it had obviously done her good, her smile radiant and her eyes sparkling keenly into the world, ready again to take it by storm. Elias was boggity bogs sure nobody had ever looked this hot in shrubs.

"How am I supposed to let you go when you look like this? Smell like this?" He nuzzled her hair, breathing in as much of her as he could in the short time he was given.

"I suggest you kiss me goodbye, then release me, and hold that thought until tomorrow morning when I slip back into bed where you'll be waiting." She prodded his chest playfully.

"Oh no, absolutely not. There will be no slipping into bed before having breakfast. What do you want? French toast? Bacon and eggs?"

"You're spoiling me. Cereal will be fine."

Cereal wasn't nourishment enough for all the plans he had with her when she returned, so he tsk-ed and tugged her close. "I'll see what I can do. Now about that kiss." He dipped her like they did in old movies, which was surprisingly easy with the stuff of nightmares keeping them afloat. He took his time, tentatively opening his mouth just a little first, knowing she'd shiver with excitement at the sight of his fangs.

"Elias." Hearing her sigh his name would never get old and he enjoyed the short distance between them for another prolonged moment before claiming her mouth. She tasted like sugared coffee and sweet promises.

The things he'd like to do ...

"Hold that thought, sexy!" She drew away from him and dashed through the door with a wink, leaving him utterly dazzled and shamefully turned on.

"You two are gross." Lowie's voice sounded from behind him.

"Why aren't you doing your homework like your mom told you to? Multiplication tables, I believe?" He took a moment to collect himself before whirring around to see Lowie waving a paper plane about.

"Multiplication tables ready for takeoff!" The boy grinned and stormed back into the living room, flying his plane high above his head.

It took Elias everything he got to keep a straight face. What had happened to the shy, anxious boy that pattered into the attic room little over a year ago? He was a cheeky little menace, pushing his mom's buttons whenever he could, and he was even worse with him, always testing and teasing, checking how far he could go, and Elias loved it. "Oh no, mister. You're not getting off the hook that easily."

He caught up with the rascal and grabbed him under his arm in-flight. He took Lowie for a spin around the room. His giggles echoed off the walls, but then Elias flew him back to his desk. "There, young man, flight completed. Multiplication tables ready to unfold. Do you need some help? I was pretty good at mathematics back in my day."

"Yes, please sit!" Lowie said eagerly as he straightened the plane back into its original paper form with both hands. The cheeky grin on his face told Elias that he wasn't surrendering this easily. What was he up to?

"See this? Right here?" Lowie jabbed a pencil to the paper, which didn't hold multiplication exercises as Elias expected, but some sort of a floor plan drawn by a kid. "You're not helping me, but I'm going to help you, because I know where another bogeyman is hiding and it is right here, in my school."

"Lowie, what is this?" He took the drawing between his talons, an awful sense of foreboding making his nightmares spin faster.

"It's my school and there, where I've marked it, in the housekeeping closet lives another bogeyman. You're looking for one, aren't you?"

"You're not supposed to know that. Have you been eavesdropping?"

"Do you want to meet him or not? I have a key." Lowie's eyes gleamed in the glow of the desk lamp.

Elias almost choked on his last sentence. "You what? Don't tell me you stole it."

"Alright, I won't tell you then. So what do you say? Are we going?"

"Absolutely not! You're going to do your homework. I will tell you a bedtime story and then we will go to sleep." He would probably not sleep a wink, tossing and turning on what this news meant and how to go about it, but Lowie didn't need to know that.

"Boring. You sound just like mom." Lowie started folding his floor plan again, angling away from him, but Elias figured that if he sounded like Selina, he was probably doing this right. He didn't want Lowie to shut down on him though.

"How do you know there's a bogeyman in there?" he asked.

Lowie turned back with a sly smile on his face and wiggled his eyebrows. "That is elementary, dear Watson. I've been snooping around."

Once again, Elias had to bite his tongue not to burst out laughing. This kid was too smart for his age. "Really Sherlock, and what exactly have you snooped? Or should I ask how?"

"I've been talking to the quiet kids."

"The quiet kids?"

"It's always the quiet kids who know the good things."

"And they told you there's a bogeyman in the housekeeping closet?"

He looked insulted. "It wasn't that easy."

"You said elementary."

"Elementary for Sherlock is difficult for Watson."

Elias was starting to believe these multiplication exercises weren't going to be a problem. "So Sherlock, care to explain further?"

"Lucy said that last year, Peter won hide-and-seek by slipping into the janitor's closet and accidentally getting locked in. When the janitor finally found him, he came out crying. Peter has refused to speak about what happened in the closet ever since."

"I see," Elias said, not seeing much at all.

"I'm sitting behind Peter in class." The boy stayed silent while casting a meaningful glance to Elias, drawing out 'his' moment. "He's been acting strange."

"How so?"

"He doodles."

Elias didn't even react, giving Sherlock his moment to increase suspense, pretty confident Lowie was too eager to spill all the tea not to go on.

Lowie leaned a little closer and whispered, "black whirlwinds and blue eyes in the middle."

Elias watched the floating nightmares around him and thought back toward his monster-under-the-bed days. To a frightened kid, he had probably looked like a black whirlwind with blue eyes. Lowie had been that kid once. Only once, but the memory still pained Elias. He wished he hadn't done that.

"Peter doodles in two different colors?" he asked, the need to punch some holes in Lowie's story growing.

"I told you ... stra-a-ange."

Elias swallowed, getting inexplicably uncomfortable by the conversation. "That still doesn't mean there's a bogeyman in the closet, Lowie."

"Wait. I'm not finished. Tessa is a really quiet kid."

"And?"

"She told me the janitor went missing last month."

"That is strange." It was. Perhaps there was a bogeyman in the school's closet. Perhaps the janitor had been forced to replace the residing bogeyman like he had been all those years ago. Perhaps not. Lowie's story could mean a whole number of things but it was worth investigating.

He wished Selina was here. They needed to talk this through and think it over. This conversation with Lowie had gone on long enough. He could see the excitement in the boy's eyes growing and it was hard not to get equally swept away. Heading over to the elementary school and checking it out right away was tempting but he had Lowie's safety to think about.

He rubbed a knuckle gently over Lowie's head and said, "That's mighty clever of you, Lowie. Tell you what, we'll discuss it with your mom tomorrow and we will hatch a plan together."

Lowie dropped his chin to his desk and sulked. "Mom will never let me come along."

"Your mom wants you safe. That's a good thing and even if she decides you can't come, I promise that we'll always give you full credit for the discovery, Sherlock. You did a splendid job, but now ... multiplications." He would have to pull out all the stops if he wanted to swing Lowie's thoughts in a different direction, but he was a bogeyman with more than one trick up his sleeve and he planned to use them all. "Do you know who's really good at multiplications? Bats!"

He whipped out all bats from his nightmare coat and had them fly in various formations. "What did you ask now? Three times five?"

With military discipline, the bats organized into three groups of five and somehow managed to persuade Lowie to return to his homework.

Selina would be proud of how he handled this. Seemed like he had handled this situation expertly.

After putting Lowie to bed, he tidied the living room and washed the dishes. If Selina was here, she would check on Lowie before turning in herself so that was how he would do it.

He climbed the stairs to the attic room and shushed his nightmares. The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling kept the room from being too dark to see.

Soundlessly, he swept in, peered down, and found an empty bed.

Holy bogs, no!

Lowie was gone.