A/N: I wanted to do a loose, modern take on Erik's younger days in which he dabbled in illusion and assassination. I also wanted to see if I could pull off some of Leroux!Erik's rambling creepiness. This is the result.

The arrival of his boss' mysterious "friend" had set Francis on edge. Which wasn't unusual in and of itself, as he tended to be a nervous sort in general. But that nervousness served as an internal alarm system for him when it seemed that something was about to go wrong-it had saved his skin numerous times. And, he was proud to say, it had also saved his boss some amount of grief when he noticed a new recruit acting strangely. That new recruit had happened to be an undercover police officer.

But it seemed that his boss didn't think much of his services rendered, because his boss continued to have Francis performing menial duties within the crime ring-delivering errands, managing the front desk at the restaurant so everything about it seemed benign. Surely his previous loyalty warranted more than that?

But if there was another thing Francis excelled at, it was learning to attempt to conceal that nervousness after living with it for a life time. But it was hard to do as he sat in the dim restaurant, hands clasped before him, back rigid against the leather covered chair. His boss did have a flair for the dramatic. There was no other reason he would have chosen the moniker "The Rat King" to be called by in the crime world. Why couldn't Francis have chosen a more simple minded criminal to work for? Any other boss would have had Francis meet a "friend" in the broad daylight. He glanced at his watch. It proclaimed the time to be 11:58 pm. He understood the need for secrecy when it came to criminal work, but surely this meeting could have taken place earlier? He wanted to go home, have a smoke, and watch reruns of Friends before heading to bed.

He drummed his fingers against the table cloth, squinting at every shadow, but none were human shaped at all, and the other circular tables glowed like tiny moons descended to earth beneath the glow of the few lamps that sat in the middle of the tables. It almost looked like a deserted movie set. Everything was pressed and perfect, chairs scooted in, the tablecloths sitting on the tables without a single wrinkle. It was as if the entire building was ready for someone to show "ready, action" and switch on the cameras in a burst of light.

The more he considered returning home, the better it sounded, but his nerves prickled at the back of his neck. The Rat King was not a man to defy, even in mundane circumstances as this. Sinking down into his chair, a shadow flickered against the wall to the side of him. It could have been nothing more than a moth, but his instincts whispered to him that it was much larger than that. Francis sat up in his chair, one arm braced against the back of it as he turned around.

"Hello?" his voice echoed out into the empty restaurant, bouncing out into the empty, darkened corners.

"You don't need to hide, Magnus told me to meet you here." Really, he didn't see why his boss needed an alias like "The Rat King" when the name Magnus was plenty ominous.

The shadow flickered against the front wall this time, but it didn't dissipate. It grew longer and thinner, the sharp shoulders of the form crawling up against the white plaster, blotting out the red lettering of the restaurant's sign near the front doors. That only meant that the owner of the shadow was steadily approaching from behind him.

Francis spun in his chair, the leather squealing. The man in front of him was like a scarecrow draped in evening wear. The formal black clothing was tailored to fit the man's rail-thin frame, but even then there were places where the fabric was too loose. His jet-black sleeves hung around narrow wrists. His dark clothing was hardly the strangest thing about this man. His face was covered in a black porcelain mask, an expressionless, thin mouth drawn along the bottom. His head was topped with a black, wide brimmed hat. The mask reminded Francis of a Victorian death mask he had once seen in a museum he had stolen from. Which was an apt enough comparison, as everything about the man seemed like he was some sort of strange funeral director. The only alive thing about the figure were his eyes-they were like yellow flickering candles.

"It is quite windy outside," the man said, removing his hat and setting it on the table. His voice was slightly muffled beneath the mask, but the voice was rich and silken, like fine velvet.

Falling back into his habits of concealing his anxiety, Francis settled back into his chair, oddly comforted by the strange contrast between the man's appearance and the banality of his words. "It's quite cold too," Francis said.

The man folded himself into the chair across from Francis, somehow managing not to bang his long legs against the underside of the table. "Is it cold? I didn't notice." He tilted his head, his eyes glittering in the shine of the lamp on the table.

Francis didn't know whether the man was joking or not, so he just laughed. "Well, yes, it is a bit cold, but it isn't too bad."

"Did Magnus tell you why I'm here?" The man bent forward, leaning his gloved hands against the table. His fingers looked like spiders.

"All he said was that you're a friend of his, and he wanted me to meet you. He likes his employees and friends to know each other. He says it fosters a sense of family." That had been one of the things that had attracted Francis to Magnus' crime organization. He had been adrift so long, scrambling to make ends meet through legal and extralegal ways, that the promise of some sort of support net appealed to him. That had turned out to be a lie. Magnus was quite good at those. In that way, at least, Magnus lived up to his rat-ish title.

"Almost. He also wanted me to provide you with a bit of entertainment. I'm quite good at that, you see." The man raised his chin, the mask shimmering like a polished stone. Francis detected a note of pride in the man's voice.

"Oh, I see. What sorts of entertainment do you do?" He thought it was best to humor the man. Someone that chose to wear a mask was best dealt with carefully.

"Oh, many things. Such as this for instance." The second sentence that the man spoke appeared to come from the table adjacent to them, as if an invisible man was sitting in a chair nearby.

"It can come quite in handy at times." This time, the words sounded as if they were whispered directly into Francis' ear. He suppressed a shiver, and managed to turn his twitching muscles into the twitch of a smile.

"That is very impressive," Francis said, giving a nod of approval.

"Your restaurant has a piano." The man craned his head to the far wall, where the instrument sat, lid closed over it.

"Yes, we do." He turned to look at the piano, mirroring the man's action. This conversation was becoming quite confusing. What was the reason for this meeting? Was Magnus attempting to unnerve him? Did Magnus know that he was thinking about-

But no.

He had been so careful. He hadn't said or done anything that would indicate what he was thinking of, he was certain of it. But could there have been any other explanation for sending a man that looked like he had crawled out of a coffin whose sole purpose seemed to be to act as unnerving as possible?

He turned to face the man again, but the funerary figure was no longer sitting in front of him. Panic turned his stomach and soured his mouth, his nerve endings on fire, his nervous system sounding a wailing alarm in his mind. None of this was right. About to rise from his seat, a hand came over his mouth, pressing a damp rag to his nose. It smelled faintly of fruit, and for a moment, he was reminded of the fact that there was wine in his fridge at home that he really had wanted to get to. What a shame it was that it didn't seem he was ever going to try it. The scent clawed into his nose and into his mind, pulling him down into darkness.

When Francis woke up, all of him ached, but especially his head and his limbs. His head was fairly explainable-he had been knocked out with chloroform. And the ache in his limbs soon became clear when he glanced down to see that they were bound to a chair. As soon as he realized that, he opened his mouth to scream, but a thin hand slapped against his lips. His heartbeat drummed against his throat, and he swallowed against the cold, bony hand.

"Don't do that. It's no use, anyway. No one would hear you. But screaming makes this much more difficult than it needs to be. I'm not doing this because I want to, you know. I do it simply because it is the only thing it seems that I am good for. Vultures scavenge, deer graze, and wolves hunt. They cannot go against their nature. I am simply a wicked thing. I am simply what I am."

One long finger peeled away from his mouth. "Do I need to gag you, or can this proceed as pleasantly as it can?"

Francis shook his head. If he was not gagged, perhaps there was still some chance of reasoning with this man.

"Ah, well chosen. You are not quite as idiotic as Magnus made you out to be. Oh! No, don't mistake that for a compliment. You're still quite stupid, just not quite as brainless as I first thought."

The man's hand slipped from his mouth, but Francis' back was still rigid against the narrow chair. He took gulping, heaving breaths, his whole body shivering. Sweat ran down from his palms and onto his wrists, trickling under the ropes that bound him. There was no way to conceal his nervousness now, and there was no doubt left in his mind that Magnus knew that he was going to scamper off to the Wallace crime organization the second he got the chance.

The dark man reappeared in front of him. "Now, then. This is simple. I will give you a choice, as your boss did not specify what he wanted me to do with you-"

Francis raised his eyebrows, voice trying to crack as he attempted to even it out and speak to the man as if he was arranging a businesses transaction. "Listen, there's no need for all of this. I'm just-I'm just nobody, you know?"

The man's shoulders jerked in an imitation of a shrug. "That's true enough. You're of no importance at all, but Magnus seems to believe you know enough things about his organization that your survival is a detriment. And joining the Wallaces is something he simply doesn't want."

He strained against his bindings, swallowing against the burning in his throat. "I swear I'll be loyal to Magnus. Tell him I'll never turn on him again."

The man sighed. "Don't you see I can't do anything for you? I'm simply doing what was directed of me. I am little more than a machine performing a task assigned to me."

"Surely you can make a choice. You're still a man-a human. We have free will." Actually, Francis wasn't sure about that last part. Once he read a compelling scientific article positing that free will was just an illusion, but repeating that information would do little for his cause.

The man made a noise that sounded like a wheezing bark, almost reminiscent of the giggling on hyenas in the darkness as they circled their prey. "I am a man? You're one of the few to believe that. But, please, let us not be diverted. You haven't heard the choice that I'm giving you!"

Some semblance of hope fluttered in his chest. He could try to work with a choice.

"Now, then. I'll give you the choice between this-" the man knelt down and, to Francis' horror, he held up a noose. It swung between the man's hands. "And the river. I like to give people a choice when I can, you see. Either way, I shall be certain to write you a nice false suicide note. It shall all be very dramatic and convincing, don't worry! I'll be sure that everyone will remember you. I think Magnus would prefer you choose the river. That's quite a classic way for crime rings to dispose of bodies, isn't it? Yet such a cliche. But Magnus does seem to style himself as a classic crime lord. Fah! Such lack of imagination he has."

As the man rambled, Francis had slumped in the chair, throat knotting and burning from the recent chloroform and the overwhelming fear. Tears trailed down his cheeks, mingling with the sweat that was pouring down his face. The man continued to ramble, but Francis wasn't listening.

In fact, he began to laugh, giggles bubbling up from his throat at the absurdity of it all. This was like something out of a movie. Having one's crony taking out to a hidden building by a masked assassin that seemed to be deeply mentally disturbed. But then, it made sense, didn't it?

It was true, after all, that his boss had a flair for the dramatic.