Excerpts

ONE Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Oe est la lune? Alors, mon ancien, la lune est ici, ouvre la Seine, enorme, rouge, et humide. 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 tragedie! 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 is only the taxis, the tourists, and that huge and 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 happy hand that now must merely clutch at Rita's while he marvels 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 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 go? Can Dexter truly come to Paris and feel absolutely nothing? Of course not. Dexter feels plenty; Dexter feels tired, and bored. And 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. But this is all part of the bargain, all part of what Dexter must do in order to do what Dexter does. In Paris, just like at home, Dexter must maintenez le disguisement. Even the worldly-wise French might pause and frown at the thought of a monster in their midst, an inhuman fiend who lives only to tumble the other monsters off the edge and into well-earned death. And Rita, in her new incarnation as blushing bride, is the perfect disguisement for all I truly am. No one could possibly imagine that a cold and empty killer would stumble meekly along behind such a perfect avatar of American tourism. Surely, not, mon frere. C'est impossible. For the moment, alas, tres impossible. There is no hope of slipping quietly away for a few hours of much-deserved recreation. Not here, where Dexter is not known and does not know the ways of the police. Never in a strange and foreign place, where the strict rules of the Harry Code do not apply. Harry was a Miami cop, and in Miami all that he spake was just as he ordained it to be. But Harry spake no French, and so the risk is far too high here, no matter how strongly the pulse of darkness may throb in the shadowy backseat. A shame, really, because the streets of Paris are made for lurking with sinister intent. They are narrow, dark, and possess no logical order that a reasonable person can detect. It's far too easy to imagine Dexter, wrapped in a cape and clutching a gleaming blade, sliding through these shadowed alleys with an urgent app Excerpted from Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.