Prologue

This story is for....

Apollo and Vincent. My hopes, my lights, my loves. I will cherish you forever and always, I love you. Christopher David Baker. One of the greatest men on this earth. Nan couldn't have asked for a better or more hard working husband. We miss you.

Nick.  The greatest friend one could ever hope for. Thank you, for sticking around. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A young woman walked through the empty streets of Belgravia alone, the depth of night surrounding her. The street was eerily quiet. No cabs went back and forth, up and down the road, which was highly unusual for London on a Saturday night. Lucie was more than slightly tipsy as she had proclaimed, having had a pint and a half at a nearby pub. She was only a lightweight, so it was extremely difficult for her to keep up the tally of drinks like her friends did. Whilst they could go on and on into the wee hours of the morning, Lucie could usually only last until early on in the night. She couldn't even make it to midnight without blacking out entirely, with the way she always tried to drink with her friends. 

She stumbled down the street, humming some random showtune loudly to herself. Every few clumsy steps, she would trip slightly, but most times she managed to save herself. However, it didn't take her much longer to lose her footing completely, and she ended up falling upon some steps, with her head jerking forward as she landed, her head nearly smashing against the concrete. Her teeth did smash together though, a resounding clack vibrating through her skull for a good five or six seconds. It was only when she recovered, and sat herself up, that she realized how far from the pub she had wandered, and how far she was from home, or anything she was able to recognize properly. The dawn of this fact was admittedly rather sobering, but it wasn’t enough to bring everything back to her mind. It merely made her scarily aware of the things happening closest to her. 

Casting her mind back through her foggy memory, she had taken a cab to her friend's home, in Putney. Then they travelled to the Spotted Horse, meeting up with a few other of their friends. As the night wore on, they paid a visit to The Boathouse, having another drink- or two, in the majority of her friends' case- there, before finishing their journey on the other side of the river, at The Waterside. Although it may not have felt far when she was with her mates, she was in no position to trek back over the river and home in the state she was. Lucie looked up to the heavens, some childish part of her hoping to see the stars. Alas, this was London, and the light pollution was so strong that the only thing visible through the orange haze, was the peach tinted lunar body of the moon, and even then it kept disappearing behind wisps of cloud. Her gaze stayed there, eyes straining against the light. What was she supposed to do to get home now? 

She felt like she had only stayed there a few minutes at most, when in fact, nearly an hour had passed by, quicker than a flash of lightening. The thing that brought her out of her daze, was a light tap on her shoulder. It was so brief, she almost thought it was her intoxicated brain trying to play a trick on her. She shook her head quickly, before turning her torso round, and looking up at the figure, almost curiously. Whilst an instinct within her subconscious had told her it could now be am extremely dangerous situation, she was very happy with the vision she was blessed with. The woman had long, dark brown hair, which looked almost black in the dim light of the early morning. Despite being hastily tied back, her hair cascaded over her shoulders, and down her back, like some sort of ink waterfall of the night. Her eyes were a similar brown, almost black, giving her a warm and motherly look about her, even if her expression was one of concern and worry. "Are you alright, sweetie?" The woman asked, her thick Texan accent immediately apparent to Lucie, despite her drunken state. Lucie slowly began to nod her reply. "Yeah..." she slurred over her response. "I think so..." she blinked slowly up at the woman who had approached her. The woman smiled ever so slightly at the positive reply, and kindly held out her hand to drunken girl. "Come inside." She offered. "You can rest until the morning, then you can be on your way. We can get you nice an’ comfy on the couch." Lucie, not knowing what else to do, and being in no state to refuse, took the woman's hand, and hauled herself to her feet, using the weight of the other woman as leverage.

Once she was at least fairly stable, she was led inside by the loving young woman, an arm round her shoulder in a protective embrace, and the door shut behind them quietly, producing a lion's roar in the cold and silent street.

The next morning, the friends that had accompanied the young woman the night prior reported to the police.  Lucie Robertson was declared missing by noon.