A/N: I'm so overwhelmed by the response to the first chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who left a review.

From the Case Files of George K. Fowler, Office of Extranormal Affairs

February, 1942: Drew Studio's Head Animator Henry Hoskins becomes the first Old Man to work for the studio, discovering his power when he brings his character, Bendy the Dancing Demon, to life. After several years of struggling to stay afloat, public interest in Bendy cartoons reignites, and by the end of the year two other major stars of the Bendy cartoons, Alice Angel and Boris the Wolf, are also brought to life.

The lift slowly came to a stop at B4. Eddie pocketed Wally's note and pulled the bars aside with a grunt.

The first thing they noticed was the ink. It was everywhere. The pipes upstairs had only a little ink flowing in them, barely more than a trickle, but down here on the lowest occupied level, they were filled with ink and severely needed maintenance. Ink dripped from loose fittings, and stains on the walls suggested that it had actually flooded, up to two feet deep. There were puddles on the floor, including immediately outside the elevator doors. Eddie had gotten worse things on his shoes, but he still wasn't happy with it.

Roger summed up the general mood with an over-dramatic, "Eeee-yuck!"

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie said dismissively.

The music department was more or less empty, but as creepy as it was, at least it made it easier to find the music director's office. From a ways off, they could hear a piano playing. Eddie strode forth, as Roger danced around the ink puddles.

"Geez, so that's what smells around here, it's all ink," Roger said.

Eddie nodded. He had come to the same conclusion, but there was also something else. He didn't say so to Roger, because he himself didn't quite know how to describe it. It reminded him of the smell of alcohol, but it didn't smell like alcohol at all.

"Can I get an amen in here!" sang a man, passionate and loud to the beat of the music.

The door to the practice room was open; Eddie stepped just inside the room, where a human man of mixed race played the piano accompanying a Toon, Boris the Wolf.

"Ain't it nice to be underground with a good old friend like me!" Boris sang, in a strong, gravelly voice, and the human sang harmonies, "A friend like me, yeah." "So you notice that sign we ain't lyin', but sit down and take a seat. There's an exit for sure, but that's for shmucks! With a little bit of ink and a couple of bucks, we can reopen the curtains and show off the strut, but for goodness sake—you gotta just believe!"

The pianist cut it short at the end of the verse, and made a conductor's gesture in the air to signal a stop. "Well, it only took seven times through but we're getting somewhere." He made a note on his sheet music, and was purposefully ignoring Eddie, but it wasn't so easy for him to ignore Boris, who had cocked his head and looked hopeful. "Alright, alright. Eugh." With great reluctance he patted Boris on the head.

Eddie cleared his throat. "I'm lookin' for Mr. Lawrence?"

"Good for you."

"Listen, wise guy—"

"Nah, how about you listen, wise guy," Sammy shot back, looking at Eddie like he was the bane of his existence. "I don't know who the hell you are or what you want, you can just get out of my music department."

"Name's Valiant, I'm looking for Alice Angel," Eddie tried.

"She's not here," Sammy said.

Eddie was going to strangle this guy. Fortunately for Sammy, Eddie got distracted by Boris perking up at the mention of Alice. "Yeah, you heard right, I'm lookin' into it. Don't suppose you can give me anything helpful?"

Boris considered it, then shrugged.

"Hmph. So he always like this?" Eddie said, gesturing towards Sammy and getting a dirty look.

Boris made a corkscrew motion next to his head and rolled his eyes, held up two fingers, and pointed a thumb at Sammy, then at the piano.

"No kiddin'?"

Boris scratched his head then snapped his fingers. His eyes went x'ed out, he turned entirely white with black outlines, and he collapsed onto the piano, draped across it dramatically.

Eddie looked at Sammy expectantly, and Sammy glared back at him. "What?"

"You heard the pup, huh?" Eddie said. "Last he saw Alice, she was down here with you, recording some music. Got anything to say about that?"

"How did you…" Sammy started, looking from Eddie to Boris. He shook his head. "Y'know what, no, no. Look, between everyone coming down here telling me how to do my job and the ink everywhere, I have enough on my plate. Music doesn't exactly write itself, you know. So I'll tell you the same thing I told Joey when he interrogated everyone on his payroll—how could I possibly benefit from kidnapping Alice?"

"I dunno, but who said anything about kidnapping?"

Sammy gave him a sour look.

Eddie casually got out a cigarette as he spoke, tapping it free of the box and pretending to search his pockets for his lighter. "Mr. Lawrence, I don't see why we can't agree on this. You want to do your work, but how can you do that if one of the studio's stars is missing? And that's just my job: finding Alice Angel. I'm not accusing you of anything, but I would like to ask you a few questions. Cigarette?" he said, and held out the box.

Sammy narrowed his eyes at Eddie. "No thank you," he said. He grunted as he turned himself around on the bench to face Eddie. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the bench.

"Were you the last person to see her before she disappeared?" Eddie said. He fidgeted with the unlit cigarette as he talked.

"Yeah. I left here at about eight on Friday night."

"Pretty late night, but I guess that's just showbiz. You notice anything strange about her behavior?"

"Nope." Sammy went on tapping his fingers along the piano bench.

"Mr. Drew told me that Alice wouldn't be 'worldly' enough to run away without somebody else helping her. Do you know anyone outside the studio, friends of Alice's, who she might have gotten help from, if she did run away?"

Sammy frowned and thought. "Don't know why she'd 'run away,' and there aren't a lot of people." He leaned forward and sighed. "Well, it's a stretch, but there's her voice actress, Allison Pendle. I think she lives down in Manhattan, hell if I know the address. About once a year she comes by 'cause her royalty check never came in the mail."

Just as there was still business for traditional animators to make shorts with one-off characters, there was still business for voice actors in bit parts and rising stars. A few years back Warner Brothers had tried stiffing Mel Blanc, the man of a thousand voices himself, after the characters he voiced were brought to life. The ensuing court case, Blanc v. Warner, affirmed that a voice could be trademarked, and that gave rise to an industry standard of paying royalties to actors for use of their voice.

Sammy quietly took out his own cigarettes and stuck one between his teeth. He lit it with a classy sterling silver zippo lighter, easily worth more than the rest of his ink-stained clothes and worn shoes. Sammy took a moment to enjoy his tobacco before returning his attention to Eddie. "But if we're talking about suspicious characters, there's one other lady you might want to look into. Joey doesn't like people talking about her, hell if I know why, but her name is Susie Campbell."

At the name, Boris whined. Sammy rolled his eyes. "Campbell used to be a voice actress, too, and she was the first person cast to voice Alice."

"Is that so?"

"Didn't take it so well when the Angel got recast. Didn't know how bad until she broke into the studio one night and trashed a couple offices. Joey got her hauled off to Bellevue real quick after that." He absently fiddled with his lighter. "Looking back on it, she was a little, uh, 'possessive' of the character." He shrugged. "I don't know if she's still locked up, this all happened five-six years ago. But if she ever got released, if anyone's involved with strange events surrounding Alice Angel, it'd be her. And knowing Joey, he's too caught up in himself to check her out."

Eddie nodded. "I'll look into it. If there's nothing else that might help—" Sammy shrugged and shook his head. "—then I just got one other question for you."

Sammy straightened in his seat and smoked his cigarette, and Eddie felt like Sammy was judging him. For what, he didn't know.

"You've made some comments that sure make it seem like you don't like him. My question is, do you trust Joey Drew?"

Sammy raised an eyebrow in mild surprise. "You know anyone who likes their boss? You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in this studio who 'likes' Joey—barring Henry—but somehow he's kept this madhouse going through good times and bad. I'll never understand how he does it, but I just write the music." He exhaled a stream of smoke. "I'll trust him to do his job and keep this studio running."

Sherry the Receptionist wasn't allowed to pull the addresses Eddie wanted without her boss's express permission, and for some godforsaken reason Joey had already left for the day. His exhausted protests that it wasn't even five didn't do anything to change the situation.

When he didn't think anybody was around, Eddie pushed on the door of Joey's office, but despite being a space case Joey had remembered to lock his door.

If he wasn't going to be able to follow up on those leads today, then he still wanted to accomplish something. He followed the pipes on the ceiling to their source, a boarded-up doorway that was completely impassible. Trying to pull down a board enough to even take a peek at this mysterious Ink Machine would make a racket enough to draw somebody's attention.

Roger was wound tightly with anxiety. "Jeepers, it's real creepy back here. C'mon, Eddie, let's go back." There was a metallic noise from the wall, probably a water pipe, and Roger jumped a little. His teeth were chattering and his ears were getting twisted up.

Eddie tried again to see if any of the boards were loose and clicked his tongue with disappointment. "Yeah, yeah, c'mon, kid," Eddie said.

Roger only barely waited up long enough for Eddie to catch up, stepping over the massive pipe running across the floor, cursing when he noticed a spot of ink on his coat and rubbing at it despite knowing it would never come out. He wasn't paying attention as he turned the blind corner, and—

"You know, they say wanderin's a terrible sin." Bendy stood there in the hallway, his usual grin on his face. He was examining his nonexistent nails and leaning against a cardboard cutout of himself—nearly twice his real height—that had not been there before. Eddie couldn't really consider why Bendy was moving around a cutout because Roger had leaped onto him.

Eddie grunted as he tried to extricate himself from Roger's hold. "Where'd you hear that line, kid?"

"Any reason you're so curious about the Ink Machine, flatfoot?" Bendy said.

"Just curious," Eddie lied. "But since you're here, I wanted to ask you a couple questions."

Bendy laughed ironically, and then he did a double take. "Wait, you were serious? I don't know anything anybody else couldn't tell you."

"Then you won't mind me asking, eh?" Eddie said. "D'you know what happened to Alice?"

Bendy looked at Eddie like he was an idiot. "If I knew where Alice was, we wouldn't be having this conversation, buddy!" Eddie was quickly learning that Bendy was a lot more sarcastic in person than he was in the cartoons. In the cartoons Bendy was a slapstick character, most of the time he ended up as somebody else's (usually Boris's) punching bag, and he never actually spoke in the cartoons, to boot.

"Gotta make sure," Eddie said. "She seem any different from usual the day she disappeared?"

"Nope."

"Didn't do or say anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nuh-uh."

"You and your coworkers live here in the studio?"

"That's right."

"Are you close with Boris and Alice?"

"Sure, we're friends. It's funny, yaknow, people think that me 'n' Boris would be at each other's throats, but me an' him are best buddies. We just follow the script." It was the same as Roger and Baby Herman. They were two parts of a comedic duo, not rivals.

"And how do the humans around here treat you?"

"They're alright. Best as you can get, I figure."

"What about Henry?"

"Well, it's not fair to compare the rest of them to Henry," Bendy said like it was obvious. "Look, the rest of the humans here leave us alone, and I'm pretty much alright with that. But from day one, Henry's never been anything but good to us Toons."

"What about Joey?"

There, Bendy froze. Eddie felt a little bad for lulling Bendy into a sense of security, but that reaction was what he was looking for. Bendy shifted his weight. "Well, uh…y'know, Joey's a busy guy. He doesn't have time to pal around. He's a busy guy."

"Right. I can tell by how he left before 4."

"Look, why's this even matter, flatfoot? It's got nothin' to do with Alice. Whatever, just do your job." And with that, Bendy grabbed the cutout (really, why did he have that?) and dragged it behind as he left before Eddie could get another word in.

Eddie adjusted his hat. "Right." As interesting as that was, he couldn't follow up on anything until he could get those addresses, and from the sounds of it, that wouldn't be until the next morning. He had a long night of a whole lot of nothing ahead of him.

It had been a long and difficult day, but it was going to be alright. Joey said Alice would be alright, and for all of his faults, Joey always came through on his promises. Henry was almost calm coming home that day, for the first time in a week. It was only 6 o' clock when he stepped in the house, doffed his hat, and started unbuttoning his jacket.

Even as he did so, a ball of energy in a blue dress came whirling into the entrance hall and clung to his leg saying, "Daddy-daddy-daddy-daddy—" over and over again, took a deep breath, and continued as he pulled his jacket off and hung it up on the hook. Henry finally looked down to the little girl latched onto him. "Yes?"

"Hi," Beth said, and she smiled to show the gap where her two front teeth had been.

"Goodness" Henry said, as he scooped Beth up and scrutinized her. "What happened to your teeth?"

"I lost them," she said. She had a little bit of a lisp.

"What's that mean? Haven't you looked for them?"

"Noooo, I know where they are!"

"Then where are they? Did the dog take them?"

"Noooo, Cerberus didn't take them!" she said, pronouncing it as 'Therberuth.' "Momma has them!"

"Well, I guess we'd better go ask momma to give them back, shouldn't we? Hup!" Henry tucked Beth under his arm like one would carry a bundle of firewood, and she squealed in delight.

'Momma' was a cooking dinner when they swept into the kitchen, the dog running in from the other room and nipping at Henry's heels. Linda was beautiful, elegant, patient, and kind. Both Linda and Henry were first generation Americans, the children of immigrants. His parents were from Estonia, while hers were from Puerto Rico. They shared their artistic bent, though Linda preferred to paint in watercolors and held private piano lessons.

"Well, well, you weren't kidding when you said you would be home at a regular hour," she said, and it was a little teasing, but they had gone through a rough patch when Beth was still in diapers, Henry said he would be home by six and he didn't come in the door until well after nine. That sort of thing happened a few times before they talked about it. He didn't lie, exactly, he was just terrible at keeping track of the time. So, he wore his father-in-law's old watch, and told Linda when they were getting into crunch time. If she knew he would be home late, it was easier.

They shared a chaste kiss, and Beth, still under Henry's arm, protested loudly. Henry thought himself the luckiest man alive.

Dinner was a simple affair with just the three of them, the conversation little more than mindless chatter about the news and Beth's daily activities.

"Daddy!"

Henry startled at Beth's alarming tone, sitting up straight with a jolt. "What, what is it?" he said, every stupid worry running through his head at once.

But Beth was just standing at the side of his chair, Linda had started to rise from her seat on the other side of the kitchen table, and both were looking at him, concerned.

"We were calling you," Linda said quietly. "You didn't even seem to hear us, are you alright?"

Henry frowned and pushed his hand through his hair as he thought. "I…" He laughed nervously. "I must be more tired than I thought."

Linda pursed her lips. "Baby girl, can you go check on Cerberus? He's been a little quiet, I'm worried he might have gotten into something."

Beth pouted, but she knew better than to argue. When Linda and Henry were alone, Linda sighed. "You're worrying us, you know that? You're worrying our daughter."

Henry had started rubbing his temples, trying to massage away the blooming headache. "I'm fine, really. Just tired."

"Sure seems like you're always tired."

"You're not wrong."

"This isn't funny. Were you lying to me when you said you were going to take it easier?"

"No, no, I wasn't lying, but—" Linda gave him a sharp look and Henry winced. "The situation's changed! I just can't help but be a little stressed, but this detective is going to find Alice, and then things will go back to normal, really."

"I hope you're right." She reached across the table and took his hands in her own. "How is everyone?"

"Same as usual, just trying to do their jobs." He knew who she meant when she said 'everyone.' "Ben and Bo are keeping it together, but you know how they are. Real world problems are still a little…beyond them, sometimes. I'm worried about them."

Linda hummed. "I know you are. I hope this detective knows what he's doing."

"I think so. He's, uh…" Henry had a hint of a smile. "His partner is a Toon."

"I—wait, what?"

Henry's explanation was interrupted by claws on linoleum and Beth screeching at the dog to put her shoe down. The dog came skittering into the kitchen, slammed into a cabinet and bounced off, and as Beth came after the dog he tried to fake her out, but she lunged and grabbed the collar.

Cerberus still tried to run, and his collar streeeeetched out like it was made of elastic before snapping back, throwing him into Beth's arms, and the pilfered shoe flew out of his mouth, flew back over Beth's head and hit Henry in the face. Linda covered her mouth with her hands to hold back laughter and Beth chided, "Bad dog!"

Superficially, Cerberus looked like some kind of mastiff or rottweiler puppy, but anyone who looked at the pup could see that it was a Toon. If not odd proportions or natural inclination for gags, then the tiny horns on his head or the little nonfunctional batlike wings on his back. Beth was smart, but she still didn't really understand why Cerberus was so odd. As far as she was concerned, he was no different from Bendy or Boris or Alice; she created Cerberus because she thought Bendy needed a buddy to protect him from the monsters that liked to hurt him in the cartoons.

With her dad's help, Beth drew her character again and again, and then one day it was like a lightbulb went off in her head. She wanted Cerberus to be real, so she made him real. Nevermind that she was only five years old, when no other Old Man had ever shown his power before their twenties. Her mom said Beth was a 'praw-di-gee'.

Her dad's friend Joey said that she was special, but as far as Beth figured, she was just like her dad. She could draw like her dad and play music like her mom, and that was a pretty good deal.