That’s how this works. You don’t know what’s gone because you don’t remember having it.
This was a travesty. This wasn’t fair. He was going to have to find a way to fix it. He would have to find a way to tear out his stolen seity from her and get it back. He would kill Ringmaster for this. He’d find a way to rip that man to pieces and eat him whole.
In the meantime, she is a pretty thing, isn’t she?
He chuckled to himself, stretching his limbs out wide. His bed had always been devoid of company. He liked it that way. Let the others dally and cavort with each other. He never felt the need. They were all revolting, weak-minded, insipid creatures. This space was his. If he ever played with a guest who came through the gates, it was in his tent. Not here.
Poor, pretty little cupcake.
Cora had thrown herself at the barrier to the Faire for three hours, by his count. And she had sat there in the rain weeping for another two before he finally had to put a stop to the itching he felt in his chest.
That wasn’t someone who was weak-minded, although her frustration at her eventual surrender had been written clearly on her face. Exhaustion had broken her down, not her will.
Surviving the kind of pain she clearly suffered on a daily basis took a resolve that he had wanted to consume. She burned brighter than most of the souls he had seen come through the gates in the past century and a half. It should have been a clear warning that the Faire wasn’t going to let him win this one.
Not when it came to someone like her.
I never win. I never get anything I want. I try, and I try, and it always finds a way to take it away from me!
At least for now, he was going to be denied the meal he had wanted to make of her. He’d find a way to get what he wanted, but it would take some time. And now that she had taken over the empty slot in their unnatural coterie, time was something he was going to have in abundance.
Play the slow game. Take the scenic route.
But maybe there was another game he could amuse himself with while he waited for the chance to kill Ringmaster, reclaim what had been stolen from him, and consume Cora. He smiled. There were other things he could think of to do with her while he waited.
Lifting a hand, he spread his fingers, watching the threads appear and span between them. They shone in the dim light of his train car. He never understood why others had such a hard time seeing them—they were so obvious.
They’re fools, that’s why.
He turned his hand over thoughtfully. Cora had a piece of him. He wanted it back. But in the absence of that, he could keep that part of him close. Even if it meant she had to come with it. At least she was easy on the eyes. At least she tasted so sweet on his lips. He remembered their kiss, and he was eager to find the chance to have another.
Someone would need to show her the ropes. Someone would need to teach her about her new reality and help her fit into the slot she had been chosen to fill. When he had dumped her off in the grass, he had intended to let her become somebody else’s problem.
Jack the Rigger was an overly sympathetic lout, and he had already tried to console her.
Aaron the Barker was always a sucker for a beautiful face. He’d try to sleep with the girl within the week, he was certain.
The thought of either of those men touching her turned his stomach. Jealousy, unexpected and unwelcome, surged up in him. He snarled. He was forced to share her pain. Who knew what else he would have to split with her? He grimaced at the idea of sitting by himself and feeling her happiness in the arms of one of those idiots.
Oh.
This isn’t a passing fancy or a little spot of lust, is it? I really do want her, don’t I?
This is problematic.
He laughed hard. “I never cease to disappoint myself.” No one was there to hear him—his dolls were never let inside his private car. And his ever-present, ever-mocking shadow couldn’t talk to him. He placed his hands over his face and growled low again. His stolen seity had to be to blame for this surge of need that he had for her. It had to be. Yes, he had kissed her before that was the case, but it felt so much worse now. This wasn’t simple attraction; this was something more. The girl was beautiful, with her long and flowing dark hair and her bright, big gray eyes. Like smoke from a candle.
And now she’s more than a little flexible, isn’t she?
He smacked his hand against his forehead. “No! Bad, bad Puppeteer!” But the images that flashed through his mind wouldn’t clear. The idea of her, dangling from his strings, bent into all sorts of seemingly impossible angles. And oh, how he could enjoy those positions.
Snarling, he flew up from his bed and threw open the door to the bathroom. He needed a shower. He needed to clear all of that out of his head. Killing Ringmaster and regaining his seity was his priority.
But I will have some time to kill while I scheme.
He climbed into the shower and smacked his forehead on the white tile.
And someone does need to show her the ropes, don’t they? Why let it be one of those shit-stains? No. Better it be me. I want her in my hands, not theirs.
It was a few minutes of standing there with his forehead whacking against the tile, feeling the water pour over him, before he realized something. He’d forgotten to take his night clothes off. He laughed, the sound turning into a cackle. Now he was just as soggy as she had been!
He was never one to deny himself something he wanted. Ever. If there was a cookie in a jar, it was his. And Cora was a tempting morsel, indeed.
You have a piece of me, Cora. It’s only fair that I get an equal value in exchange, isn’t it?
That settled it. The girl belonged to him. He was going to take her under his wing, show her the ropes, and entertain himself with her while he figured out how to consume her and reclaim his missing part. And if he could convince her to be his in the process, all the better.
He laughed. “Seems like I’ll get to find out what you taste like after all, Cora dear.”
They say that the very worst thing a man can be denied is love. This is not true. The very worst thing anyone can be denied is not the respite to be found in another’s arms—but that which is to be discovered in the embrace of the grave.
Death is a mercy.
Humanity would be wise to learn this.
It is the greatest gift mankind has ever been given by any God, new or old. To deny death is a curse. And humanity, like children, are always scrambling to find a way to achieve such a terrible end. For we fear that silence of the beyond, where we should look at it as nothing more than the rest of sleep.
As a wiser man once said, “To sleep, perchance to dream.”
And in these dreams of death, what dreams may come, indeed? For if we were to forever hold on to this mortal coil, what would come of us then, I ask? What madness and blithe malice might form in the vacuum left behind, believing ourselves to have ascended to some greater form?
We would become beasts of cruelty, as we were paid the same.
The laws of the universe must still hold true. There is no action without equal and opposite reaction. If death is denied, then more death must be caused.
For to die is to be mortal. And mortality is a requirement of mankind. I say to you, then—that if we are denied death…we are no longer of the human race.
Take these matters together into an account, and simple arithmetic leads us to the answer of what an inhuman creature we might become in the absence of our own deaths.