Thread: Carnival: Shadows And Whispers Under The Big Top (Dane Stalling & darkangel76)

Albert kissed the girl's skin where her neck met her shoulder, pulled the edge of her dress over her shoulder and kissed skin he had just uncovered. Please, she said, and he was happy to oblige. He took her earlobe between his teeth, pressed gently, and then whispered in her ear again. You're welcome. Her hands were on the lock, but she wasn't trying to get out any more. This was how it was supposed to be. He had her. I... I need to go. Her eyes were filled with emotion, a fine conceit, he thought. She would be excellent in the theatre. No, my birdy, you need to stay. Albert pulled her dress over her shoulder and let it drop. She looked delicious, and he licked her skin briefly, just a touch of his tongue. He felt the satisfaction of capture fill his chest, exulted in his power over her. He ran his finger down her arm, took her wrist between his fingers and drew her hand back and down. I have a cure for frightened pretties, he said, and pressed her hand against his hardness as he bit her shoulder. ---- Callum flipped the pages of the old book. It smelled old and dry like corn husks kept too long in a mattress. The illustrations were careful and detailed. Very detailed, and he found himself to be in a state of excitement. He shifted and pinched himself. There were passions denied to monsters and it wouldn't do to indulge them. His lamp went out and he refilled it in the pitch dark. The tinker-wagon was as familiar to him as his own hands. When he came back to the book, he saw how the therapies worked. Pulsing stimulations, rubbing of excitable pearls and fleshly buttons and cavities. The essentials of a machine began to form in his mind. An off-center cam spun on a shaft would produce a vibration that might counterfeit a physician's quick fingers in one of the therapies. Another technique had a slower out-and-in rhythm. Callum imagined that that a brass cylinder attached to a driving-wheel would piston in a very like manner. The motive force could be a hand crank, foot pedals, even a wind-mill or steam, if the device were designed cunningly. The images in his mind of the machines helped alleviate the uncomfortable excitability of before. The machines could be built, but he knew that every solution would be subject to changes and refinements and he needed to understand the therapies more fully before committing his ideas into hard brass. ---- Mairon squeezed the heart gently a couple of times to make it beat uncannily. The twins were there, Kenna the redhead with her eyes lowered and blonde Astrid's eyes wide and bold. Frustration pierced him, even as he set the heart on its display plate and a kind of fever came over him. He did something that his father had forbid him ever to do. He changed his act. Ladies and Gentlemen, he said, I am going to attempt a most perilous demonstration, and for this I will need... He let the words hang in the air for a perfect moment, ...a volunteer. He saw the shock on Maya's face, then immediate anger, but her hand was the first in the air. She was trying to rescue him, but tonight he didn't want to be rescued, and certainly not by his little sister. I need a person of hot-blooded character, of bold demeanor, and of steadfastness in the presence of dire danger. Hands went up, tentatively, all over the audience, but he waited, feeling the tension build. Is there no young man or woman who possesses the qualities required to assist in my endeavor? Maya's hand waved desperately, but he caught her eye, grinned and winked before gently shaking his head just for her. She put her hand down, reluctantly, a cold ball of fear forming in her stomach. Illusionists died sometimes when the plan changed. When things went wrongly they could end up dead of their own gadgets, or worse, hung by townspeople if their instruments killed another. Is there no one? he said again, but now he looked directly into Astrid's bold eyes. He would find out if the woman was as bold as her countenance or if she would vanish as was her wont. ---- Barker Clive leaned against Ava's trailer on the shadow side. She was a cold, beautiful one, and untouchable, but he felt her presence in the slight rocking of the springs as she moved about inside, readying herself for bed or for a dance, for a meeting in a gentleman's coach. He could not tell, but he felt the trailer rock against his back. When her weeping began though, he felt that her tears wetted the back of his shoulder, but when he touched his fingers to the spot, they came away dry.