Around the Block, and Back Again (claim)

[Velnias]

Sweeney Todd

He's a demon barber come to give you a shave

"Tsk, tsk, I came too late for Mr. Goodall! He's rotted by now! No whiskers left to trim..." The town of ghosts was deserted, all there were here were remnants of bodies like the mangled one of a stallion I'd just passed. "My, my, what a ruined place." I clucked at the sight of it, talking in a low murmur to myself. I was keeping me company; being in solitude with your insides rotting out was depressing indeed and one needed to, per say, find ways to entertain oneself. "Those lazy slobs do irk me; I wish they would all have gone out, attained a formal mthod of occupation and done their fellows some good service as I am!" A sneer appeared on my lips. Distantly I thought I heard a faint clatter and so I sealed my lips. My body melted into the shadows, shades of gray cast here and there on my pale face with eyes piercing the dim morning fog.

I was a dark-colored horse with the telltale signature of gauntness, the symptoms exhibited by most Cursed. But I was also limber and slim, and healthy from the walking I'd been doing. Or at least physically healthy, as they'd say. My face was pale chalk, my eyes a sort of dark color with depth to them unfathomable, but they were beginning to look permanently bloodshot. I had a feeling that as time passed, my skin would slowly creep onwards, the pale coating slowly spreading...or the black sheen slowly receeding. I had a kind of quiet but ragged way of breathing either from the pent up rage in me or the literal sense of the ailment of my kind that slowly dissolved the skin of my lungs.

My body flattened against a building's side, I crept along the oddly paved sidewalk and passed by several old, worn down, shops of various kinds. Their windows were shattered, their doors unhinged, their chairs and tables within all upturned or rotted. In a few, the floor or roof itself had caved. None of it fazed me; I kept moving, sidling along the walls, in the shadows where the sun hadn't yet risen to reach. An alert expression was etched across my face, curiosity and anxiety scrawled in my unblinking eyes. I walked with a fleeting gait, picking up my hooves so as not to be heard, my eyes darting from one sde to the other and then ahead. When I reached the street corner I paused. "Mrs. Lovett?" I whispered around the building. I peered around the corner, wide-eyed.

"Ah!" The dust was still cearing where a broken, gray mass of something hard and sharp had fallen. I looked up; the veranda railing of the saloon-style building had simply, well, otted and all it took, I was supposing, was a gust of wind to make the debris fall into the railing and right through! I made some kind of a horse-shrug, and let out a sigh. "I thought not." I frowned, pivoted, and peered down at the long alley of mangled buildings I'd just passed down, and farther down the dusty street at the end of the road stood a tall, three or four-story warehouse. The wood was old and gray and when the wind picked up even from a short ways off I could see it shudder. But an idea came to mind.

"Indeed! The perfect place to set up shop! What to call it?" I looked around feverishly, down one end of the street to another. "Where is the bloody signpost?!" I stamped a hoof, frustrated that whoever had last resided here hadn't bothered to name the street or fix the sign...what did these humans call their places anyway? Old and New York, Old and New Amsterdam, the Mexicos, the Zealands. They were so very unoriginal. I found a loose board jutting from the side of one of the buildings nearby and using my teeth I tore it away with a grunt. I fashioned a pole out of hinges and rusty nails and mounted the wood sign upon it. Out came the gleaming silver razor; I carved the name of the street into the old, decrepit wood. With a smirking grin spread across my face, I read it. "Fleet Street." "Wonderful, just pleasant, daft witches. Moving ON!"

I trotted with an indomitable swagger, noticing the shadows growing shorter, but the sky oddly enough growing darker! Hmm...it follows me, does it? No matter. Indeed the gray clouds were spreading out over the sky and they did follow me. Soon the ghost town terra looked like one of those old London city backstreets you see in gory horror or suspense films, as the humans said. 'Tis ironic. I pinned up a sign against the wall in the same manner as the other. One of my special powers was to craft and make things, move things, put things together with a slip of the hoof. I nailed this wood plank to the wall and labeled it "Barber", with my own name in a nice subscript below. I took a creaking, hollow step inside the old building. Everywhere inside was gray-brown, with discreet-looking, hollow rooms on either side of the stair set right in front of the door. I furrowed my brow. "Up we go."

"Lucy, where are you? Lucy, I'm home!" Each step creaked and once I put a hoof through a stair! Ten steps up, a square landing, and then the second set of stairs. At the top of the stairs on the second floor, there was a door. Just one door. An old lock was still there, but I bumped it with my nose and it sort of shattered. It was rather dim up here, because no light was let in. There was just the roof, the wood walls, and the stairs behind me and the door in front of me. Just a creepy old home. I grasped the knob with my teeth and turned it, pushing the door. It budged slowly and I pushed hard against it with my shoulder. Finally, it swung away and revealed the mysterious attic of the house.

A large, wide, rectangle room. One long wall opposite the door was made entirely of glass panes covered by an old dirty tarp. I crossed the threshold and pulled it away, surprised I hadn't noticed the windows from the street, as that was where I was now facing again. I chuckled, exploring the rest of the room. A vanity table stood along the wall just adjacent the windows. A mirror was propped on its surface; I blew away the dust and, for the first time in a long time, glimpsed the slightly ghastly, shadowy fgure that was me. I realized what an oddity I looked like with my black coat, pale-dusted face, and the single white portion of my mane that was bleached white. My mid-length mane sat on my neck, rather glossy and wavy, and I looked positively strange.

"Oh, yes, some barber I would be! I would scare the hair off of them before I had a chance to. . . to. . ." I paused, gawking for thought. Then I grinned and forced myself to look away, realizing that my smile looked utterly disgusting to look at. I would have to fix it. I returned to staring at myself before the glass, and this time didn't show my blackish teeth. I found I looked rather suave and appealing, which would certainly come to benefit me. "Yesss....." I then noticed in the corner of the reflection, in the corner of the room, a heap of rusted metal scraps. Enough? I hoped so. With a sly cackle to myself I began re-molding the scraps into things I could use. Suddenly I yelled and faced he door, my frame hulking and angry. "DOOR!" From the tone of my voice alone I commanded the door to shut and lock itself with a latch I quickly fastened.

Shortly afterwards, my creation stood in the center of the room, a masterpiece by my own making. A barber chair, but something else was different about it. For just in the floor behind it I'd noticed a trapdoor, indiscreet to the eye. But curious, I had unlatched and looked down inside to where it led. A narrow chute, but wide enough for a body. It led to the cellar of the house, below ground. There was a baking oven down there. I had planned it well, figured it all inside this twisted, sneaky brain of mine. Outside the sky was a permanent dark, cloudy gray. "Well, well, darling. I suppose we're open for business." My voice was scary smooth. I looked out over my ghost town terra, a gleam in my eye. "All I need is that witch, Mrs. Lovett. . ."

I allowed the door to unock, and swing invitingly open.

OOC - oh, dear goodness me, I love him.

[.๑whovian๑.]

Bing bing.

Rattle Rattle.

Crash

Bang

BOOM.

"Hehe..." I giggled. I pulled myself from the wreckage, and peered out of the window. The street looked like it was deserted. Excellente. I scrambled too my feet, knocking the couch over again in the process, and galloped through the front door. Well, the doorway, the door had been ripped off it's hinges, courtesy of myself. I smiled. "We'll find him Puppet." I said with a giggle. "He can't hide forever, and then I will kill him!"
[glow=red,2,300]How are you planning on doing it this time?[/glow]
I don't know, do you think I should throw him out the window?
[glow=red,2,300]That could work. [/glow]
Or I could bash his head in.
[glow=red,2,300]Ewe that's gross.[/glow]
Not with him.
[glow=red,2,300]True.[/glow]
Hmm.....

I paused a moment, mid thought and leaped down the steps, tripped, and somersaulted the rest of the way. "OUCH!" I bellowed. The street was ever quiet still, and I leaped to my feet again, unharmed. The fall should have broken my neck, but it didn't affect me. I was already dead...or, well, at least I couldn't die. Like him. Except he was different. He somehow wasn't one of my kind. He was different, he was from the world of the goodie two shoes. But he was like me...in a way. Bah, I would worry about the mystery of him later. I began trotting down the street, and then, I spotted the next building. There was a sign, outside of door, and I paused a moment before going in. "Barber." I read aloud. That was odd.
[glow=red,2,300]Why the hell is there a barber sign here?[/glow]
I dunno, maybe the barber's in!
[glow=red,2,300]You dumb mare, why the hell would there be a barber in a ghost town?[/glow]
Maybe it's a ghost barber.
[glow=red,2,300]Oh sweet lord.[/glow]
Well, it's possible.
[glow=red,2,300]There's no such thing as ghosts.[/glow]
There's no such thing as magic either, and look at us! We've been here for ten years, been killed twice and we're still here.
[glow=red,2,300]Three times.[/glow]
What?
[glow=red,2,300]Three times.[/glow]
When?
[glow=red,2,300]Just now.[/glow]
Huh?
[glow=red,2,300]You fell down the steps...?[/glow]
Oh yeah.

I giggled, and ignoring Puppets words of warning, I bounded into the house. Well, I tried anyways, because I ran into the door. It was open already, but not enough...there was a loud crack, and I wasn't sure if it was my skull or the door, but the door snapped in half, so it must not have been my skull, but then again, it could have been. Anyways, after the stupid door hit the floor (hey that rhymed, tee hee), I bounded inside the house. "Oh Jacky, where are you? Jacky ho, Jacky hee, Jacky poo! Where are youuuuu?!" I giggled hysterically, and spotting the steps, I began bounding up them. I put my feet through about four or five of them, but it was no matter. I just kept going right up. Soon, I came to a door, and without hesitation, I bounded in.
[glow=red,2,300]Fly, don't you think you should knock?[/glow]
KNOCK? WHY THE HELL WOULD I DO THAT?
[glow=red,2,300]Because somebody might be in there already![/glow]
Oh good grief why on earth would there be anyone in there?

I crashed into the room and froze. There was somebody in there. A tall, somewhat handsome, and somewhat terrifying stallion was in there. I giggled. "Oh!" I laughed. "Well hello!"
He scares me.
[glow=red,2,300]He scares me too.[/glow]
That's okay though.
[glow=red,2,300]That's okay??[/glow]
Yeah, I like being scared, don't you?
[glow=red,2,300]Oh Fly...[/glow]
"You haven't seen him have you?" I asked the stallion. I giggled again, a little nervously. "He likes to hide, he does..." Then, I spotted something that the horse had open. A trap door! Oh goodie goodie goodie! Without hesitation, I dove head first into the hole in the ground, fell down about two stories and crashed onto some sacks of flour, which exploded upon my landing on them. I was laughing, coughing, spluttering, and shouting all at the same time. "JACK!" I yelled, "OH JACKY! COME OUT COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE!!"

I looked around the room. "OOOOH! Mister you've got an oven down here! Did Jacky bake himself into a pie? Can I get baked into a pie!? Oh! What fun!" I giggled hysterically, and finally, I gave up my search for the man, and decided to leave the room.

-------

It was possible to hear the mare crashing through the house five or six streets away, but nothing compared to her methods of breaking out of the bakery room. He wasn't entirely sure how she had managed that, but he finally crawled out of the ruins of the many flour sacks coughing a bit, and made his way back upstairs. He was quite a sight. The dark stallion was covered from head to toe in flour, and as he emerged, he looked up at the dark stallion standing there. He grinned. "Well hello there," he said with a smile. "Captain Jack Harkness, and who might you be?"

However, before he could finish his sentence, there was the thundering of feet. It seemed as though she had broken through a few more doors, hell, maybe even a wall or two, and was bounding up the stairs for a second time. She skidded to a stop, framed in the doorway, panting, covered in splinters and flour and looking crazier than ever, panting slightly. "I FOUND YOU!" she screamed. Jack blinked a moment, staring at her, and braced himself. She was either going to kill him or herself. She chose the latter. Without warning, she turned and galloped at the wall, leaped and smashed through the open window. A loud thunk and the shaking of the house told the two stallions that she had not quite cleared the roof, and she landed with a splat on the dirt road below.

"Dear dear, Miss May, what have you done?" he said with a grin. "Met her the other day, she found me with a spear through my head. When I looked up and said hi, she decided she wanted to play hide and seek. Didn't really know what that meant till she threw me out a window. Not really hide and seek, but it makes her happy. Cheers big fella!" However, he merely trotted over to the May shaped hole in the window and peered down into the street.

"JACKY! YOU SHOULD GIVE THIS A TRY!" the stallion grinned.

"Nah, I'm too good looking to go through! The glory's yours!" he hollered back. However, he was not remotely interested in jumping through windows. As much as he died, he tried not to make a hobby out of it.

words; 1133
muse; fab
notes; .........

Fly thinking
[glow=red,2,300]Puppet talking inside Fly's head[/glow]
Fly talking
Jack Talking

[Velnias]

Sweeney Todd

This won't hurt a bit...

There was a crash. A bang. A thud, just down the road. I pricked up my ears. ”Mmm, customers already? Where is that daft witch…” I looked down the street to see some kind of mayhem unfolding. A clattering noise came from within an old building and suddenly a strange mare darted through. She traveled too fast for her own feet, quite amusingly, and to her own downfall she tripped on the stairs and landed hard in the dirt. I yelped aloud. “MRS. LOVETT!” My mouth fell apart and hung there, my forehead pressed into the glass panes. Then Mrs. Lovett stood, shook herself off, and I heard a faint cackling coming from her down on the street. ”Ah! She’s alive…” I muttered to myself. ”Yes, that is the dear Missus I know…” A tiny giggle came from my lips and I turned back to my own creation in the making. My barber’s chair I had finished, and I stood with a mixture of pride and sour disgust looking at it. My own creation. My own revenge. ”That damned snake. Stealing Lucy, eh?” I sneered to myself. ”Oh, no…no, that will never, ever do.” I whirled from facing the object I’d constructed with my own skills and craftsmanship. ”Pretty little rosebud, isn’t she?” I snickered, mocking the voice of the brute. ”Pretty as her mother LUCY! Prettier than you when you’ve come in for your hair trimming!” I burst out in a cackle of laughter, only to be interrupted by a banging, crashing noise coming from below the floors of my barber shop. Ohh…. Through the door burst first a cloud of dust, then the undead mare from down the road. I stood there with a quiet grin on my face that must’ve looked something like a menacing sneer. I knew how ghastly I would be looking, ad mind it I did not! Miss Mare Mrs. Lovett wouldn’t mind me, she only did what I said, when I said, and at whatever baking temperature I SAID!

”Ah…surely the men didn’t keep you long, dear Miss? I see you’ve combed you hair! Where is young Tobias? We have meat pies to deliver—“ As I took a long, sweeping step towards her she blanked out, and her face changed again and again. Listening to something, looking at me, listening again! She looked anxious, but then her face changed again and went blank. Whatever was going on up there in her dearly beloved head? Then she sputtered to life and piped up about looking for him. ”No, Mrs. Lovett,” I grinned suavely and searched her face with my peering, staring dark eyes. ”We can always find ourselves a new lad…has he been misbehaving?” I was standing near enough her I could see a little bit of uncertainty in her eyes. But then she looked away from me and giggled again, moving on to her infatuation with the trapdoor I’d left open. She fell down headfirst rather clumsily and with a cackle spurting from her throat as she tumbled down the chute and landed in the pile of baking flour below. A cloud of white dust puffed out the trapdoor hole and I shouted, peering down the chute where I saw her sitting up, swaying a bit woozily at first. ”THAT WAS THE SHAFT FOR THE victims—“ She began shouting in a sort of dazed way, looking about wildly for someone she called Jack. I put on a serious face. ”DON’T YOU MEAN TOBY?! JACKY WAS DEAD, LOVE!” I shouted down to her, looking out the window of my shop and out over the town. ”WE PUT HIM IN THE CHOPPING-CHAIR!”

I cackled with a bit of delight. My voice, though, was dark and sneering. ”Oh, my friend, that was such bloody fun.” I slipped my silver razor from the secret hiding place. ”NO! YOU CAN’T BAKE YOURSELF UP! BUT IF YOU FIND THAT WEAZELRAT, TOBY, FEEL FREE!” I heard her cackling die down for now. I kicked shut the trap door, knowing it wasn’t good for any bloody business, showing off your equipment. The door true to form, melted in the floor and was hidden. I concealed my razor again and gave myself a final once-over before the mirror. Then someone else came walking up the stairs. A dark colored stallion stepped through, but he looked pale with bread dust. ”My, Toby….what a mess you are....” I grinned, my one of vice suddenly less jaunty and more suave and prickly. ”Sit, sit…” I motioned to my barber’s chair. ”Mrs. Lovett has been telling me all bout you! She calls you Jacky now, I told her she was confused, that Jacky died a long time ago because he forgot to take the pies to sale…” I looked past him in time o see the ragged, messy lady bounding up the stairs with a wild look in her eye. She looked from me to him and cackled maniacally. I grinned, but that was momentary. The smirk left my face when she ducked right past him and slammed into the windows, breaking through with a wild crash. ”Not again…” I muttered. ”SOMEONE FIX MY WINDOW!” I shouted down at the street where Mrs. Lovett sat up already, recovering from the fall. I shook my head, my eyes glittering as they watched her. Toby started talking to me. I listened distractedly. I scoffed at the lady out on the street and jerked way from the broken window, keeping an eye on Tobias all the time. Scouring the dressing table with the mirror propped up on it I cursed under my breath, unable to find my hair comb. ”I suppose he let the place go to scrap while I was gone, did she…?” I faced Toby, looking over my shoulder with piercing eyes. ”Have you seen it? Since you’re here, and you aren’t taking goods to the pie shop…WHERE IS MY BLOODY COMB? And what were you doing with an arrow in our head…” I fixed my eyes on his and waited impatiently for his answer. ”In all reservity, it’s really at your downfall the unfortunate circumstances that led someone undying like you to waltz into my care because, you see, I can’t kill you! But I can make you hurt, if I want. Come, boy! SIT HERE!” I pointed to my chair, and stepped forward so I stood behind it, pulling my razor from its concealed place. ”You, boy, need to be taught what happens when you don’t deliver my meat pies…”

[.๑whovian๑.]

I giggled hysterically. This guy was off his rocker. I loved it! Because so was I! Well, I was crazy, but this guy was delusional. I mean, who the hell was Mrs. Lovett? He seemed to be addressing me when he said this, and it was starting to get annoying. And who the hell was Tobias?
[glow=red,2,300]How am I supposed to know?
I wasn't addressing you stupid.
(Puppet snorts angrily)
Oh come on, how can I expect you to know what I don't know?
(Puppet doesn't answer)
PUPPET! STOP BEING EMOTIONAL!
FINE!
GEEZ!
GRRR....[/glow]
[glow=red,2,300]
I ignored the squealing idiot and focused on more important things. Jacky and the weird fart.

PLEASE, INTELLIGENT LANGUAGE!
Whatever.[/glow]

"No! Jacky is NOT dead stupid, and I don't WANT to find another lad, what the hell are you BLUBBERING ABOUT?" I shouted at him. He was really getting annoying now. I was vaguely aware of the horse yelling at me the entire time, even as I exploded out the window, but after that, well, I was having way too much fun to care. However, I couldn't stand what he said about poor Jacky. "HOW COULD YOU PUT JACKY IN THE CHOPPING CHAIR?! THAT'S DISGUSTING! YOU ARE DISGUSTING DO YOU HEAR ME?!" I shouted this from the street, and hoped to see what Jacky was up to. I shouted up to him.

"JACKY! COME DOWN INTO THE STREET!" I screamed. "AND YOU WITH THE WEIRD WHITE HAIRS, YOU DON'T TOUCH MY JACKY I GET TO KILL HIM FIRST!"

-----------

Not only was he highly amused by the situation at hand, he was also mildly irritated. As he stood there, framed in the doorway, the black stallion started speaking to him. Tobias. Hmm....He had been called many names before, but that was not one of them. Meat pies? What? Mrs. Lovett? This guy had some serious delusions going on here. The handsome dark stallion stared at the black one, momentarily lost for words. He listened to Fly screeching at him from the street, and the other stallion beginning to shout now. He grinned. "My name isn't Toby, and I take that as a compliment," he said, partially in response to his condition. "My name is Jack, not Toby my friend."


Now what was with the comb? What would a horse want with a comb? Jack snickered heartily at this. "You like to groom yourself properly then, eh?" he asked with a grin. He chuckled. "Oh, you are Mr. Comedy, aren't you? I could watch this all day." However, no sooner had these words left his mouth than the stallion started to get angry. Uh oh. He thought. This guy might have gone round the bed a long time ago, but Jack new an intelligent species when he saw it. This guy knew he couldn't die, but yes, it was entirely possible for him to feel pain.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said. "Let me just say a few things before, you know, infinite pain. One: I don't deliver meat pies, I EAT meat pies. Two: I don't like sitting, it spoils my manly figure. Three: I like windows too!" With that, he turned and hurtled himself out the window after fly. However, he did it in a manner that only Captain Jack Harkness could.

He somersaulted with manly elegance over the roof, and launched himself off the edge with his hindquarters. He soared some thirty feet through the air, and tumbled artfully on the other side of Fly, rolling a few feet, and leaping gracefully to his feet again. He tossed his mane. "Now that," he said with a grin. "Is how you jump off a roof Fly." Fly giggled. "What was that about killing me then?" he asked.

-------------

"Who-hoooa, Jacky, I think somebody's manliness just got a little bit to full of it!" I said with a giggle. I then proceeded to give him a right hard kick in the shoulder. "OUCH!" he bellowed. He glared at me, but then he grinned. "Why, you little fox!" he said with a grin. I giggled again.
[glow=red,2,300]Fly, you are beyond my understanding. In fact, all I know is that you are a revolting creature and I don't know why I know you.
Gee, thanks.
Well, you are!
HAH!
What?
Dude, I may be an idiot, but I'm not STUPID.
Er, that didn't make sense.
Yes it did, you just want to make me look bad. Now shut up.
[/glow]
"So, what should we do with this one Miss May?" Jack asked me. The two of us stared up at the window of the house where the barber horse was. I stared at him and shook my head slowly, and the most sane words I had spoken in days came as an unsuccessful answer to his question.

"I have no idea." I looked at him. We both grinned, and then laughed, and laughed, and laughed until we could laugh no more.

words; 825
muse; good
notes; omg....I love these guys, lololol

[Velnias]

Sweeney Todd

This won't hurt a bit...

Oh, she’ll regret that… I was taken aback by the words of the lady, but listening to her ceaseless blabber I soon felt a sneer slide across my face. A dark look appeared in my glistening eyes. Maybe they weren’t the right ones, after all? Maybe…maybe I’d come too soon. But no, I wasn’t going to leave now. They knew me, and they would be useful to me. They would soon learn to find pleasure in the art I practiced soon enough. There was a real and true necessity for it; so much evil in the world, and it all needed to be done away with. A quick flip of the blade, a slice across flesh, and it was done. They’d never know! But, ah! Only for these two. They were perfect…that Mrs. Lovett was a charming one, but fiery, but if I could persuade her into loyalty! No need, in fact, she’d come willingly soon enough. And Toby, young Toby! He didn’t have to know everything. I remember him from that place, that miserable little place, we must have rescued him from. Oh, he was miserable there. And he took to Mrs. Lovett like a young boy to his mother…

”BAH! I HAD YOU ONCE! STOP with this BLEEDING NOISE!” I tossed my head madly in rage, trying to push the voices from my mind. They had become more prominent, more noticeable, more pushy! They were now hardly impossible to tell apart, from my very own thoughts. They told me things, made me imagine things I didn’t want to know! Telling me these things about to happen, had happened, should have happened, and I was lucky they didn’t sing it to me! Standing there in my second-story barber shop, the old wood planks creaked under my hooves as I stamped a foot down hard. ”Dear gods, make it stop!” I whipped my head around to face the mirror. You, I thought with seething anger, and I stalked towards the dresser. My razor was out, flashing with its silver luster, and it was flying through the air, flung at the glass. It hit with a sharp crack dead in the middle, and the glass cracked apart. I retrieved the blade and concealed it. ”There, there…now I can’t see you anymore.” I spoke to the three voices. The ones that tormented me always with their stories and chanting, their tales about my deeds.

I didn’t grin, but stood there, looking into the glass. I narrowed my eyes into black slits. The hole my blade had pierced in the center led to long cracks in the glass like claw marks. They were straight, jagged lines splitting the glass into large and small shards. It was like one of those trick mirrors that we saw in London-land sometimes, that looked like a kaleidoscope. Each shard, although it still reflected the attic-room behind me and my face, sneering into it, it was like each shard was somehow different. It reflected light in a different way. It was mesmerizing and I stood there for several moments, my breath coming to me harsh and rapid as I quelled my rage, and my eyes looking all the more ominous and gaunt and ghastly against the pale background of my face. I remembered so many things from London-town, I remembered Anthony, and Beadle Bamford, and the very Judge himself…and oh, dear sweet Johanna, poor Johanna, locked away by that monster without a scrap of affection.

“London,” I said with distaste, as though testing the word after having forgotten how to say it for so long. I left the mirror and strode the length of the room, my eyes fixed not out the window as I walked past, not behind me on my shattered mirror, but on a second door. In the darkest corner opposite the place in the room where the wide glass windows let light stream in, it sat, just hardly open at all. Cold air wafted through and across my coat as I drew near it. For the first time I felt an ominous feeling churning in my belly. Did I really, truly want to see what this place had to offer? I was so much like my old townhome back in the day, back in London-town. But surely not…? Could it be?

I threw open the old, dusty door and stared into a tiny dark room. My heart pounded like never before to see what I saw. A few old trinkets, piled against the far wall. The room was only big enough for four of me to stand shoulder to shoulder in, and I could stand just inside the doorway and almost touch the far wall with my nose. There was a large, old wooden chest in here, with a rusted padlock and peeling dark yellow paint. The metal was solid, though; it was sealed tight. I flipped open my razor blade and went to work at the padlock. It came loose with little struggle on my part and I lifted the lid with care, peering inside. The chest smelled like several-hundred-year old usage, which is what it had been. There were folded cloths made of satin and some furry material. I pulled them out one by one and tossed them aside. With the chest now empty, I went to work at dragging it into the anteroom. I pulled it along, my teeth grappling with the side, and pushed it up against the wall near the door into my barber room.

I returned to the hidden chamber. There wasn’t much else of interest, apart from a tiny cradle that sat all by itself, as though wanting to be noticed. A cloth draped it, hid it from Time and the world. I lifted the lace blanket away, and what I saw sent a shriek from my mouth and a shock through my bones. The doll’s eyes were busted glass marbles, her porcelain face cracked and dusty. Like the glass mirror. Her dress was torn, and it was stained with blood. ”Lucy! No…” My face fell and I felt my throat grow tight. I wanted to shed a tear for her, only one, but it would not come. My legs shook and I stood looking down over the doll cradle, my face grim and dark with purpose. ”London.” I could look no longer at the scene. I left the room and slammed the door, returning the chamber to eternal darkness. Using my blade I maneuvered the lock on the door, as the handle was useless. I broke the tip of the blade and broke it off in the keyhole. ”Stay hidden, my precious.” Feeling the dim light flooding onto my back, I went to look out the window, down on the street, where young Toby and Mrs. Lovett were paying a deadly game of cat and mouse. They had left all of my doors open and my window shattered, and they may or may not have heard my shrieking. It didn’t matter anyway, imposters as though they claimed to be. I could always lock them in the oven, and they’d have a painful time escaping. She would fix my window, whether she liked it or not. They would learn yet that I didn’t like my things touched.

If they came up now, they would see me in a daze, staring out the slanted windows. They would see the look of menace in my eye, the pale anger written across my face, my skull bones and eyes prominent and protruding rather sharply from my gaunt face. The look of leftover grief in my eyes. And then it would be gone, replaced by something far greater. Far more alluring and ominous. ”There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit,” I growled slowly, ”and the vermin of the world inhabit it and it goes by the name of…” There it was again, whispering in my head. The Banker. You know it! You know it! he shrieked. I sneered, seeing him there, out the window, on the street, looking at me, visible only to me, and showing me where I would go, and telling me where I had been, the horrible things I had done. Then I watched the other two play their silly game of tag. All emotion ebbed from my face. My body shook with the anger that tried to return, beginning with a tremble in my lower lip, and then suddenly my massive frame seemed to hang without strength. I felt weak, embracing my pain. My body hung over my bones limp and tired, my muscles feeling strained, my eyes looking to the floor, my body still, without breath. And I knew I must let go of my sorrow, replace it with the bloodlust that could feel my very body on its endurance quest to come. And the smile flashed onto my teeth. ”…And it goes by the name of London.”