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When the invitation had come Merci had been delighted. She'd never really gone to any of the events the shop had put on before, but this one looked like incredible amounts of fun. She'd gone about getting costumes for both her and Dio even. Sure sure, it was a haunted house and not a dress ball but that didn't matter. She would never ever admit it if asked but Merci was incredibly vain and she wanted to look awesome while she screamed her heart out.

She spared no expense, and she would look fantastic. The fox woman was gird in a historically accurate pirate outfit. Brocade jacket, thigh high boots, sword, and pistols. All in all she would be well armed if nothing else. In a particularly wicked moment she'd decided to do something vicious to her poor Fiend. His costume was not nearly so bad a**. She decided to dress him up as a cartoon character from her youth, and she had it tailored to fit him exactly. When the outfit had arrived in the mail she had squealed in joy. Dio would be going as Rainbow Brite, and there was pretty much nothing he could do to stop it.

The excitement died about the point she told Dio about it. The boy heard the word 'Swamp' and 'Dress'. His eyes had gone wide and he flatly refused. He had an incredible phobia, and even the thought of going into a place like that freaked him out. Not to mention he was getting teased enough about screaming like a girl, he didn't want to get teased for dressing like one.

That was until Merci made a few concessions. First she would blind fold him and lead him into the house. Second she would do the same for him when they left. Lastly, and most importantly, she would get him the next thing he wanted, no matter how expensive, without any questions asked. Her only stipulations were he had to go, and he had to go dressed how she wanted him to.

So it was with a great amount of fear that Dio clung to Merci's shoulders as she lead him through the swamp that surrounded the house that Reyna lived in. The fox woman was smart enough to wear sexy boots that were scotch guarded and water proof as she slogged up to the front door of the imposing structure.

She'd been here a few times, and she never ever remembered this being here before.

Regardless she put a hand up and touched Dio's fingers where they were clenched in her clothing, "We're going inside now love I'll take the blindfold off when I shut the door behind us."

The teenager was shaking like a leaf in an autumn storm. He knew where he was, even if he couldn't see it, and it made him mindlessly afraid. The sounds of his guardian's boots as she made her way to wherever they were going was so much louder then it would have been otherwise.

All he could do was cling to her and try and tune everything out.

That was when things changed. He heard a creaking noise, and then suddenly the sounds of Merci splorching her way through mud was exchanged for the echoing sounds of heels on old wood. 'Can I take it off yet?' His voice was weak, but he was proud of himself for keeping it steady.

Merci stood just inside the doorway and she narrowed her eyes. It was incredibly dark, and even with her heightened senses she could barely make out the shapes of things in the room. She reached up and pulled Dio's hands off her vest and took the colorful head scarf that served as his blind fold off of him. She tied it up around her hair to be sure she didn't lose it as she tried to gauge exactly where they were. For some reason, this place seemed bigger on the inside to her then it had looked from the outside.

Dio's eyes were better suited to the dark conditions, as he'd been blindfolded until they entered the house anyway. The room looked like it hadn't been here for a very long time, and had never been cleaned or tended to in that period. Long cobwebs hung from above, though the ceiling was high enough that he couldn't make it out. The old sofa and rocking chair were caked with dust and grease. He assumed it came from the condensation of the swamp outside.

He reached down and took Merci's hand in his and squeezed it. 'There is a door. It's across the room from us.' It nagged at his mind that somehow, even with the door shut firmly behind them, that the rocking chair seemed to move on it's own. Dio was pretty much certain he just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. So he inched closer to his guardian and practically plastered himself to her back.

Merci could hear the chair moving, and her ears flicked a bit as she realized she also heard very quiet singing. Creepy. Instead of being terrified like Dio, she was enjoying herself. This was after all the point of a haunted house, to be made to feel like your skin was crawling. Using the whispered directions from her shadow she strolled forward, pushing open the door that separated them from whatever lay beyond.

Merci's hand tightened around the knob and she tried to turn it, but nothing seemed to happen. She grabbed it with both hands and grunted with the effort but the damned thing seemed to be rusted shut.

Dio thought he heard something, a noise in the background that he'd been able to ignore before. Somehow though it just got louder. The sound of a girl begging to be helped somehow. He whimpered and turned his head back to the room and that's when he saw it. One of the dolls was no longer limp on the sofa. It was standing and staring right at them. Though it wasn't moving anymore. Dio blinked his eyes and for the split second his eyes were closed things changed in the room.

It had gotten closer when he'd blinked, and it was smiling at him. 'Merci....' His voice was high pitched and he tried to move around in front of her, to put her body between him and the scary doll.

She turned and the thing was right in front of her. She let out a surprised sound because she hadn't heard anything. The doll like thing was oozing blood from what looked like wounds on it's.. well her body. But the eyes were real, not plastic, and the grin was malevolent and vicious. It's hands were up, like it was about to touch her. Merci plastered herself against the door that wouldn't open and stared at this thing that was in front of her.

Then she blinked and instead of the room, she was outside. In the swamp. Her heart rate had skyrocketed, and she was leaning against the doorway that they had walked in not to horribly long ago. Even as she began to relax, Dio let out a wailing keen.

He'd been huddled behind Merci's legs. As she had pushed herself back against the door, he'd moved down so she was still between him and the creepy whatever that thing had been. Now however his worst fear was right in front of him. He shut his eyes and wrapped himself around his guardian in a death squeeze. Dio didn't even realize he was making the sounds he was.

Merci quickly opened the door to the haunted house again and pushed into the first room, slamming the door behind her so Dio could let up. He was practically choking the life from her in his terror.

Merci cleared her throat and glanced back at Dio, "Ready for this my boy? You gonna survive long enough?" She tried to keep her voice light, but the truth was that doll thing had scared the s**t out of her. It was like some creature that crawled straight out of the darkness in your heart. Mystic might be right and this might all be illusion, but these were illusions of the worst kind.

Dio cleared his throat a little bit and nodded. He attached himself to the back of his guardian and murmured quietly, 'I'm okay, I can do this.' He didn't want to admit that he was freaking out, but he knew that he couldn't hide it from his bonded.

She grinned wolfishly and headed across the room. The rocking chair drifted back and forth, as if being pushed by an unseen hand. Merci pushed open the door to the bloody room and she stood in the doorway. Everything was as it had been when she'd looked in here the first time. All the dolls were draped over the furniture like they'd been attacked by some vicious killer. The blood was still fresh and pooling on the floor.

Merci cleared her throat, "Dio, you keep an eye on those things alright? If one looks like it's moving you tell me okay?" When she heard the high pitched agreement from her boy, she moved across the room silently. She'd mastered that walk many many years ago.

The teenager curled up against Merci and he kept his eyes locked on the mannequins. He brushed his long hair behind his ear, so he would be able to keep both eyes trained on those things.

She moved back over to the door that wouldn't open before, and she put her hand on it. Hopefully this time it would turn.

Merci stood totally still with the door open in front of her. Eventually her breathing would go back to normal, and her blood pressure would go down. The fight or flight had kicked in, as soon as the door had ripped itself open. Hawk's entrance had been completely unexpected, and with as tense as she had been, waiting for that thing to sneak up behind her, it had gotten to her.

Dio petted Merci's hair, 'It's okay it was just Hawk.' Actually seeing the other two fiends made him feel a bit better. Something told him that if things went REALLY bad that they would be there to help. He wasn't however looking at the dolls anymore, he was worried about the fact that Merci's heart had skipped a beat.

The fox woman jumped a bit at the actual touch of Dio's hand on her hair. It helped bring her back to herself and she frowned. Okay so this was a pretty good haunted house, but she wasn't going to leave before she'd conquered it. Merci was not a coward, and she growled as she pushed into the new room.

She squared her shoulders as her booted feet made their way inside. The smell of blood was pretty overwhelming here, it was also very dark. The moaning of someone in extreme pain seemed to echo from the walls. It was disconcerting, but not enough to make her back out of the room. Something brushed against her cheek and Merci raised her hand to touch her face. Her fingers came away wet and she realized that something was dripping on her from above.

Merci's eyes moved up of their own volition and she tilted her neck back. Something was danging from the ceiling, her mind couldn't make sense of what she was seeing right away. Parts, people parts were hanging from giant meat hooks that dangled from the darkness above her. She made a disgusted noise and scanned the darkness for another way out of the room, this time however a door didn't seem readily available.

Dio buried his face into Merci's back and whimpered. There was a feeling of joy here that didn't fit. Something or someone enjoyed the blood, the sounds of pain. He could feel it through his empathy. 'Lets go back Merci, please. I don't like this place.'

Merci backed up, her hands touched the place the door should have been, but she met nothing. There was no handle, slick blood coated the walls and she frowned. She couldn't find the way to go back. "I.. I can't find the door." Her voice was calm. "We'll have to find another door."

The door clattered open with a bang and Merci stalked into the next room. Like everything else in this place, it looked like it had been abandoned long ago, but other then the thick cob webs and the greasy dirt layering everything nothing immediately jumped out at her. The room was long and in the center of the room was a table. From where she was standing it didn't look particularly daunting or terrifying, it just looked like a banquet feast that had been left the spoil.

Oh the smell was pretty damned awful but that was just about the only thing that was freaky at the moment. Her eyes moved up and down the room and her posture relaxed. "Dio shut the door, I don't want those dolls coming in here after us."

Dio did exactly what he was told. He hadn't liked that thing in the least. As it was he was libel to have horrible nightmares from this whole experience. He had half a mind to tell Mystic that he had better do something about that too.

Merci glanced around the room and realized that there were three doorways. One behind the large chair that indicated that was were the head of the household would sit. One on the opposite wall and the foot of the table. The last being the one they came though. "Well Dio, you pick. Heads or Tails?" Okay so probably not her best joke but at the moment she wasn't feeling particularly witty.

The teenager re-draped himself around Merci and shut his eyes. 'Tails' If he picked another horrible room he wouldn't ever forgive himself. He wanted out of here so bad he could taste it.

The fox woman shrugged a shoulder and headed toward the door at the foot of the table. "Alright love, here we go. Keep your eyes closed and for the love of all that's holy please try to keep your fear to yourself. Your screwing up my mojo." With those words her hand closed on the door knob.

The rocking chair was still tipped over from the last time they had come through. Merci was glad to at least see that little bit of vengeance had stuck. She hadn't even had to ask Dio to watch the dolls. He just piped up that he had them in his sights as she walked back through the room.

Getting hit in the face by the smell of rotting food was almost as bad as the smells of blood. For Merci it was actually worse, because she'd become accustomed to blood many years ago. "Heads this time my love." She wasn't even going to move toward the foot of the table. That garish pink room haunted her nightmares, which might be why it showed up here.

Dio shut the door to the dolls behind them and he quickly reattached himself to Merci. 'Okay, I hope Auntie Reyna is there. I've never wanted to see her so much in my life.'

Merci couldn't help the smirk. "I'm sure she'll appreciate being wanted." She rounded the head of the table and glanced over her shoulder at Dio. "Close your eyes my love." When she could see that he'd done as he was asked, she nudged open the new doorway.

Dio actually realized that there was something different and sinister that hadn't been here before. They'd been through this room many times, but he'd never felt anything like this before. 'Um, Merci? Did you knock that chair over before?' The rocking chair in question was back on it's rockers and was moving, just as it had the first few times they had come in here. Like it was being pushed with an unseen hand.

Merci frowned when she realized what Dio was talking about. Something had set the chair back up. It hadn't been her, and she assumed since she didn't see the other fiends or Reyna, that is was another denizen of this horrible place. She'd picked the wrong holiday to start attending the things put on by Twilight Designs that was for sure.

The chair stopped moving. The fox woman almost relaxed. That was until footprints started appearing in the dust on the floor. Ladies high heeled shoe prints moved from the chair to right in front of her. Merci's green eyes moved up from the floor, and a ghostly face that was more mist then real appeared in front of her. The mouth opened and let out a scream that pushed Merci back through the door she'd been leaning on.

Her hands were up over her ears and she was making pained noises. Merci's foxy ears were incredibly sensitive, and that loud of a noise right next to them was not very fun. They were ringing something terrible.

Dio would have soothed Merci if he'd had the presence of mind. He was curled up against the door almost in tears again. He hated swamps, more then anything else they made him feel utterly powerless.

The guardian stood on the porch for a few minutes, letting her ears recover. When she could hear the crickets and other wildlife again she heaved a sigh. Part of her had been worried her ears had been permanently damaged. She turned on her heels and stared at the doorway. This place was violently ejecting her and her charge. Over and over again.

She was loathe to give up. "Dio, do you want to wait in the car for me?" Merci offered him an out. He shouldn't have to suffer because of her stubbornness.

When Merci spoke he lunged at her and attached himself to her again. As much as he hated swamps, and this house, the thought of being alone was horrible. Especially here.

She nodded and pushed the door open again. If that thing was still just inside the door, made of mist or not, she would find a way to stab it.

The mirrors acted like mirrors. As Merci slowly skulked her way through the room she tried to keep her eyes on each reflection of her. each reflection had a reflection and had a reflection. She was copied out to infinity on each side, and it was enough to give her a headache. She couldn't get out of her fast enough.

The left hand door had moved when she'd gone for it, so this time she decided to go right. After all, left is never right, right? Bad pun but it made her smile, and that was something. She'd not been having the best of days today.

This door did not move when she got to it, and she was able to push it open pretty easily.

Dio just prayed to the stars above that Reyna would finally show up. Even if he wasn't doing anything really, he still just wanted it to be over. He didn't handle fear well at all.