Dexter by Design

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE THIRTY-SIX EPILOGUE THE END

DEXTER BY DESIGN

JEFF LINDSAY

For Hilary, as always

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is impossible to write in a vacuum. The air for this book was provided by Bear, Pookie, and Tink.

My gratitude to Jason Kaufman and his aide de camp, Caleb, for their enormous help in shaping the manuscript.

And as ever, special thanks to Nick Ellison, who made it all happen.

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ONE

PARDONEZ MOI, MONSIEUR. Ou EST LA LUNE? Alors, mon ancien, la lune est id, ouvre la Seine, enorme, rouge et hutnide.

Merci, mon ami, I see it now Et actualment, name of a dog, it is a night for the moon, a night made just for the sharp pleasures of the moonlight, the dance macabre between Dexter of the Dark and some special friend.

But merde alors! The moon is over la Seine? Dexter is in Paris! Quelle horreur! The Dance is not possible, not in Paris! Here there is no way to find the special friend, no sheltering Miami night, no gentle welcoming ocean waters for the leftovers. Here there are only the taxis, the tourists, and that huge, lonely moon.

And Rita, of course. Rita everywhere, fumbling with her phrase book and folding and unfolding dozens of maps and guidebooks and pamphlets, all promising perfect happiness and, miraculously, delivering it —to her.

Only to her.

Because her newly wedded Parisian bliss is strictly a solo act, and her newly acquired husband, former high priest of lunar levity —Dexter the Drastically Deferred —can only marvel at the moon and hold tightly to the impatiently twitching Dark Passenger and hope that all this happy insanity will end soon and send us back to the well-ordered normal life of catching and carving the other monsters.

For Dexter is used to carving freely, with a neat and joyful hand that now must merely clutch at Rita's and marvel at the moon, savoring the irony of being on a honeymoon, wherein all that is sweet and lunar is forbidden.

And so, Paris. Dexter trudges meekly along in the wake of the Good Ship Rita, staring and nodding where these things are required and occasionally offering a sharp and witty comment, like, “Wow,” and, “Uh-huh,” as Rita trammels through the pent-up lust for Paris that has surged in her all these many years and which now, at last, has found consummation.

But surely even Dexter is not immune to the legendary charms of the City of Light? Surely even he must behold the glory and feel some small synthetic twitch stirring in response, somewhere in the dark and empty pit where a soul should be? Can Dexter truly come to Paris and feel absolutely nothing?

Of course not. Dexter feels plenty; Dexter feels tired, and bored. Dexter feels slightly anxious to find someone to play with sometime soon. The sooner the better, to be perfectly honest, since for some reason Being Married seems to sharpen the appetites somewhat.