Beautiful Freaks (22 page)

Kaspian pulled his arms around his chest
and shuddered. The temperature had dropped and he guessed that it was raining outside.

“
You’re cold?
I’ll get the fire going.”
Eve
smiled and waved
a hand,
inviting him
to sit on one of the large sofas. She made
her way to the fireplace and fiddle
d
with a tap locat
ed to the side of it
.
T
hree loud clicks
preceded a sudden flash of blue flames.

“Holy, Hell!”
Kaspian shouted.

Eve giggled.
“Clever isn’t it? It’s just three gas tubes with tiny little holes. I stole the idea from Bunsen’s burner.

“Genius! How clever!”
Kaspian laughed with relief
.
“I thought for one minute you were a witch.” Within minutes
he could feel warm air filling the room.

A
n uncomfortable pause
fell between them
and Kaspian
’s
thought
s
flashed back to the
‘future’ glass.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“Yes
please, that would be good.”

She went to the wall and turned a small dial which Kaspian assumed rang a bell somewhere in the serving quarters.
He watched on, mesmerised as
she picked up two small cones connected to a chord
in
the wall. She placed one to her ear and one to her mouth
into which she gave detailed orders
for a pot of coffee and a bottle of brandy to be brought up.
When she finished, she hung the cones back onto a hook on the wall.

“What contraption is that? Another one of your inventions?”
Kaspian asked.

“No, afraid not,” she laughed. “
It’s an Am
erican invention; a ‘speak phone’. It a
llows you to talk to people over a distance. The sound
of the voice vibrates
through the chord.”

“Amazing!” Kaspian sighed and he knew that she understood he was really talking about her.

*

Kas
pian found talking to Eve easy.
They drank their c
offee until it cooled past pleasantness and then poured a glass of brandy.

“So, this evening when you realised you’d killed her, why didn’t you just fade out?” Eve asked.

“And leave Denvers to face the music alone. They wouldn’t have just thought he was a murderer but they’d have thought him mad too. I couldn’t sentence a man to the noose or worse than that, to the horrors of Bedlam?”

“Sometimes it’s more important to survive than to be noble. Denvers is nothing special, he is entirely … dispensable.”

Kaspian laughed, “You really are a wicked witch aren’t you? And anyway, you came to the rescue and saved us both.”

“I have a habit of doing that!” she punctuated with a wink.

There was a pause whilst she topped up their glasses. Kaspian used the time to scan around the room, trying to understand who Eve really was.

“So, how does it feel t
o have committed your very first act of evil?” A smile played at the corner of her lips.

Kaspian blushed with shame and replied with heavy sarcasm, “Strangely, it doesn’t feel that great.”

“That’s your conscience talking.”

“Well, yes it is – I kind of like having a conscience; i
t makes me human.”

Ev
e laughed, “Being human is completely over-
rated if you ask me
, and anyway, you’re
not
… human, that is
.”

“Yes … thank you, I do know that!
” Kaspian snapped petulantly.
“And what about you? Are you human?”

Eve completely skipped his question, leaving him wondering whether he had actually asked it or just thought it.
“
I know you
feel rotten now
,
but in
that
moment you didn’t.
Admit it, Kaspian, you felt good
– didn’t you?” It was far more a statement than a question.

Kaspian thought back to the fatal kiss. His lips tingled at the memory of it. He drank deep from his glass then forced the confession from his mouth,
“Yes … I suppose I did.”

“You shouldn’t feel bad about it – it’s
a good way to die!” She shifted
her weight so that she leant on the arm of the sofa.
“Well, as good a way
to
die as there is, if you must die that is.”
She looked at him, challenging to pick up on her words. But he didn’t; Kaspian was too preoccupied with his own guilt.

“Will she have felt anything?” Kaspian asked
,
sounding slightly wretched.

“Oh, yes – she’ll
have felt something.”

He
let out a small groan
and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Eve continued,
“She’ll
have felt
bliss like
most humans can only
imagine.”

All at once Kaspian was assaulted with sensory flashes; images of the girl’s eyes, the touch of her skin, the feel of her breath in his throat, the feel of her body trembling in his arms. A feeling of horror swept over
him
as he unde
rstood that if he wasn’t human
then he must be a monster, an abomination.

“It’s
so wrong. What I’ve done is
truly
awful.”
Kaspian’s face crumpled in a wave of grief and he thought that he might cry.

Eve
rose
from her seat,
turned to him and crouched at his feet. She placed
the pa
lms of her hands onto his knees and calmed the nervous movement of his legs.

“Look at me, Kaspian.
” She waited and when he did not respond, she pulled his face into the palms of her hands, giving him no option but to meet her dark green eyes.

“Look at me!
You’ve saved
the girl from a wretched life.
A
life full of disease and pain, of suffering and indignity.
You gave her a way out – a beautiful way out of it all. You replaced a lifetime of squalor and violence, of hunger and pain with a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss.”

Eve’s pupils were as black as the silk of her dress. Kaspian
reached out his hand, cupped her chalk white cheek in
his
hand and sighed.
Her hands fell to his lap.

“Kiss me!” she breathed out the words
and they hung suspended between them, waiting for Kaspian to claim them. 

He
closed his eyes and shook his head.
“You know
that
I can’t.
My kiss will steal your soul.
”

“
Yes you can.
I have
no
soul.”

*

Her words dripped into his consciousness one by one. Without opening his eyes, he
leant forward and let his lips light on hers for the briefest
moment
before pulling away.
He listened for her breath; heard it ragged and deep. He opened his eyes, moved once more towards her, and just as his courage failed him, she pulled his face to hers. Their lips crushed together and a pounding desire coursed through his veins.

Soon the pull of gravity tipped them both towards the floor
and they
were
caught i
n a frenzied pulling of ribbons
and wrenching of buttons.
Layer after layer of fabric and netting were stripped back and wrestled with until they finally reached each other.

As Eve made love to him, Kaspian knew that this was the night he truly lost his innocence; every tick of the clock since the midnight hour had marked a step closer to his damnation. He looked up at her, saw that she was glorious and he let himself fall.

When the madness was over, t
hey lay side by side, silently walking around their own internal worlds. Outside the window
,
the
dawn was breaking and the sounds
of London drifted through the heavy lace drapes. At last, when the floor no longer seemed as comfortable as it had, and the heavy chime of a clock echoed through the house, Eve stood and held out her hand before walking
Kaspian through to her bedroom. T
hey both fell into a heavy and satisfied sleep.

15

FORTUNE

Steptree had spent his sleeping hours chasing demons. When he broke free and woke, it was to a world still quiet and peaceful.
His
insomnia was starting to feel like a disease, gnawing away at his spirit and mind. He’d
begun
to question his own sanity, wondering if his degenerative mental state was due to some premature senility. Certainties trembled all the time, as if he could no longer judge what was real or unreal. Sometimes he would feel moments of complete overwhelming paranoia; have the sense that he was being constantly watched. Twice this week, he’d be gripped by images of returning home to find the house empty and instead of finding Meg and
Elsie in their beds,
evil looking ragdolls were in their place.

Knowing he would get no more sleep that night,
he
left Meg asleep in bed
and went to
make some coffee. He could not remember the last time they’d woken side by side;
he
could not remember the last time they’d made love.

The kitchen was cold. He pulled a blanket from the cupboard and wrapped himself in it whilst waiting for the coffee pot to warm. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, hoping
to find somewhere inside
that was peaceful and warm
,
but the image
of
the playing card
was
burned onto his eyes
and refused to leave
.

Ye
sterday afternoon he’d tried to visit No. 7
but there’d been nobody
home. A great big London house
and not a soul stirring, not even staff. And although he had been dreading what he might find there, somehow finding the place empty and closed was more unsettling than if he’d found a house full of horrors. Through all his uncertainties there was one resounding certainty
:
someone was playing a game with him and the
die was
weighted against his favour.

The coffee pot erupted, gurgled a demand for attention. Steptree snapped out of his melancholy daze and saw to it, pouring a thick black coffee into his favourite mug,
which was
now chipped. He reached out for the bowl of sugar and stopped mid
-
grab, his hand swerving off to reclaim a far more curious object. Stuffed behind the tea caddy was a pamphlet for a travelling fair. It looked
ordinary enough;
the illustrations
were, on first glance,
what he might expect but something
niggled
him.
‘It’s in colour!’
He brought the pamphlet close to his eye, tipped it to let the light fall on the surface. Sure enough the pamphlet, announcing the arrival of a travelling fair looked hand drawn and painted with watercolours.
‘Nobody would hand draw and paint delivery pamphlets.’
Steptree felt his heartbeat quicken.

“Ah, you found it.” Meg’s voice startled him. “I thought we might go – take Elsie out in the pram.” She wrapped her hands around his waist, nuzzled her face into the well of his back.

“If you like,” he replied. Somewhere in his stomach a lead weight plunged.

*

“Roll up! Ro
ll up! Rare and exotic beasties! M
agician
s from the Orient! S
igh
ts to amaze your eyes and faith!
Roll up! Roll up!”

“Cures for
all
!”

“Hot tasty pies! Come and taste
mi
hot tasty pies!”

The cacophony of the fair made a lively orchestra. The senses were crammed with noise, and smell and sight. Everywhere the eyes landed there was something wonderful and weird. Steptree allowed himself the briefest of smiles as he watched Meg dancing with excitement. Elsie was sat upright, her little bonneted face moving in circles of amazement as she took in the weird spectacle.