Disclaimer: All characters are owned solely by their respective copyright and trademark holders. The author does not own the rights to any of the characters mentioned within. No money has been made from this.

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The hardwood floor pressed into his knees, unyielding, reminding him that he had been walking all night without rest. Without food (he excluded the bite of Mrs. Lovett's pie), without sleep.

He had been walking, really, for the last fifteen years this way. Food like ash, no rest. Even in dreams he walked, he searched, he ached...

Lucy.

His stomach churned, imagining the terror, the pain. He'd soon visit that same curse upon the judge. Soon... he tilted a razor in the light... soon. Best to make ready...

He pulled the razor's edge across his thumbnail. Fifteen years waiting for the touch of his hand. He slashed the blade through the stale air, dust swirling in the scant sunlight of an overcast London afternoon.

Yes, I'm ready. I waited for you... you've come home. Never let go. Hold me forever.

Lucy...

He'd spent the first year praying. Constant prayer, mostly silent. Get me out of this place, Lord, please... I've been nothing but your humble servant. In Jesus' name I pray... deliver me from this evil... deliver me to my wife, to my daughter... please, God...

Deliver me from this evil, from these beastly men, from the scorching sun, the crack of the whip, bloodied flesh, oozing, red welts, the sting of gin, hard-earned... so hard-earned, down my back...

Deliver me from this sin, from the searing pain, from the rotten mouth puffing fetid air against my cheek, from this base invasion, from the grimy, callused hands pawing, scratching, leaving bruises, leaving a more indelible mark within.

The years wore on. God was not in Australia. God must have been with Lucy, yes... and Johanna, shielding them from the horror of this life. Perhaps he took it all for them, the suffering. Gladly he would suffer, if his girls were safe... the tortures of the damned, I'll take them all, God. Damn me, not them... let angels' wings shield them from harm. I'll take it all.

London. The filth, the rot, filled his nostrils even as they sailed into port. His heart ached. Johanna. Beautiful, he was sure, like her mother, with yellow hair and eyes that danced with laughter. And Lucy...

Benjamin, you've come home! I waited for you... every night I prayed that angels would bring you back to me, safe and sound.

Her lips, soft like rose petals, against his flesh... hair like the finest silk of the orient, spilling across his chest... Venus in the flesh, every curve a brushstroke of God.

Fear had gripped his heart as the bell on Mrs. Lovett's door jingled. His old landlady, just as he remembered her, perhaps a little paler now. But no sign of Lucy. No sign of his little girl. His heart beat like a hummingbird's wings.

Arsenic. From the apothecary 'round the corner...

No. No, no, no, no... No.

Where was God? All a joke, a lie, a hoax, concocted to torture people with hope, and Jesus, who? God made flesh? Who had he saved? Not Lucy, not his precious angel. She had suffered... he knew her suffering. Every scrap of dignity gone, clinging to some tattered remnant of modesty, some illusion of virtue, trying to ignore the filth running down his legs, crawling like an animal on its belly, helpless and ready for the butcher's knife, the relief of death.

Arsenic.

All his suffering for nothing.

No, not for nothing. His hands trembled. He felt something stirring inside him, the beating of angel wings, now. The terrible angel of death had taken his Lucy, and was guiding him now, whispering... yes...

He turned the razor over in his hand, examined the handle. There she was! His spirit guide, silver angel of death. And he, the purveyor of vengeance, the executioner, more powerful than any judge.

He rose off the floor, a corpse resurrected, new energy filling him, flushing his cheeks. He pulled open a drawer. A crumbling leather strop, reduced to powder as he lifted it, fifteen years of dry rot taking its toll.

Fifteen years rotting in Hell, all of it leading to this day. He felt a renewed strength. He could take flight, he knew it, on raven-feathered wings. A ceramic bowl, very plain. Hand-painted ones sold by Mrs. Lovett, he surmised. A brush, lean on bristles, handle worn smooth by use. A cracked mirror. He caught sight of himself, panes of glass glistening, though not as brightly as his razor. What did the dead have to lose? Nothing... nothing at all... soon he could rest in peace. Soon...

Soon he would lie in Lucy's arms, and kiss her once cold lips, warmed again by sacrificial blood.

Only then would his Johanna be free. He hoped she knew how much he loved her. Maybe, in her dreams, she had heard his prayers. He knew they hadn't fallen on God's ears. Maybe in her dreams, he was still alive, protecting her from the monsters. He would be the hero of her nightmares. He would.

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