Join the Dance

x. Something Wicked This Way Comes

"I feel like something bad is going to happen to me. I feel like something bad has happened. It hasn't reached me yet but it's on its way."

- Lake Mungo (2008, dir. Joel Anderson)

In the quietest part of the mansion, the giant walked down a dim corridor toward the sound of a violin.

It was a horrible sound. Both frenzied and wistful. The giant's bald brow creased as if to resist the music, but as he reached the far doors, he stretched his posture to full height, as if to look proud and terrifying. He aimed a glare that could level a mountain at the shrivelled face of the Imp guarding the door. But the Imp twisted the handle without looking up.

The giant strode into the greenhouse. The violin quietened. The jungle surrounded him on three sides like a pack of predators, but the giant man showed no anxiety. He followed the gravel path with practised ease, until he came to the opening of the suffocating air: the cul-de-sac where a crumpled figure sat, with its back to the giant, in a rickety wheelchair.

The giant stood at attention. He held his winter cap behind his back. "Master," he said in his harsh voice.

"Rourke." This voice was even more grating, and not at all the voice of an old, broken man who would wither away from sickness or old age. This was the voice of something ancient, something powerful. "You bring news of the boy," it said.

"Just a little. It may not please you, but 'tis something."

"Tell me, then."

"I do warn my unassessably grand master that it may - "

"I did not ask you. Speak."

The order was so chillingly demanding that Rourke had no choice. He cleared his throat. "Today there was a lad, matching your perspicuous description, who crossed the path of two Imps in the Bowery. He killed one - stabbed it right in its spine, poor bugger - "

" - and the other told you of this incident," interrupted the cold voice.

"Yes." If any muscle in Rourke's jaw twitched, he did a fine job of remaining stoic. "Said the boy had bright green eyes. Emerald, as it were."

The bent man - or magician, or perhaps monster - made a scratchy chuckling sound like he was choking on his own laughter. After a minute, two large wrinkled hands, so shrivelled they resembled a lizard's, appeared on the wheels of his chair. "This is the same boy you discovered in the market?"

It was hardly a question and Rourke was entirely obliged to nod. Then he added "Yes, Master," as he seemed to remember he could only see the rumpled, scabbed back of the old man's head.

This old man twisted his fingers around his wooden wheels, and slowly, he turned the chair to face Rourke. "And what about this," he rasped as his skeletal, faded face was revealed, "would not please me?"

The giant looked into those cloudy eyes. He felt that his very soul was being watched, that behind that blurry sight, the Dire Magnus could see anything and everything. Rourke had never been afraid of that keen eagle gaze. But now, having not fulfilled the great man's one desire - the difficult task of finding the boy - there were shivers running down his overly large back.

"Well, here's the thing," he said quickly: "I don't know where he lives. If he isn't hiding under an invisibility spell then I'll be damned."

The Dire Magnus tilted his head and his thin, parched lips in what would have been a wise smile if it weren't so grotesque.

Rourke frowned. "Does my master find interest in my difficulty?"

He chuckled, that horrible throaty chuckle. "No, no, not at all. You see, my dear Rourke, I already knew this information you have so loyally given me. Have you anything new to say?"