The Sisters Dukhov in Special Effects

[NOTE: The following text is the original story. Textual discrepancies will be present from this version to the audio version.]

The Sisters Dukhov in: Special Effects The stage was dark and empty; the curtains had been taken away to the cleaners. It didn’t matter to Emilie though, because at this moment she was trying to believe she was in a grimy alleyway, and that she was a twelve-year-old boy. Many actors she knew would tell tales of how lost they’d gotten in some of their roles, like they had actually been in that place the script suggested. Emilie had only ever managed a sort of half-state of mind between her character and herself. Maybe that was why Malcolm, the director of the players, had never given her a speaking role before now. This time, however, she’d finally gotten a part, a real one, not just a member of the crowd or chorus. Even if it wasn’t a dramatic ingénue like she’d imagined. But even if she had to do it as a young boy, she would make this her big break. The whole of Kilcara would be talking about her performance, the show stealer of To Hell. She swore on the soil itself. And Dodger was a fine character. His death at the hands of the killer was the most shocking moment of the play, after all. If only she could get these lines right. “Ah,” she said, pushing her voice down in her throat, “this looks like a good place to rest me weary bones tonight. That inspector was barmy. ‘These streets aren’t safe’. Don’tcha know tha’ I’m the king of these here streets?” She snapped back to herself suddenly, remembering where she was. By the soil, had she done it? Yes, maybe, if only for a moment. She had almost felt the night chill on her face, the heat of the bin fire. It had been so brief, but perhaps she could do it again... “Wha’ was that?” She straightened from her crouched position, trying to remember how to center her weight on her shoulders, like a man would. “Ah, twas nothing but the wind. It truly does whistle through these alleys. Although, might be best to have something to defend meself.” She pantomimed picking a stick off the ground. “You wanna try something, you piss-drinker? Stop skulking in the shadows and let me kill you like a man—” And this was where the killer would say: “Would you like to try?” Emilie leapt a foot in the air. That had been real; it had to have been. She’d heard a voice; she’d felt a deathly chill right next to her ear. There’s no way that could have been her imagination. She scrambled off the stage and dashed down the aisle to the door desperately trying to catch her breath. When she turned around, however, there was no one on the stage. Emilie blinked several times, then frowned. Maybe she was just getting tired. It was nearly the middle of the night, after all. She shook her head, pushing the door open and feeling the cool night air just outside the walls of the theater. She had been so sure a second ago, but maybe she was just that great of an actress, after all... ~~ o ~~ “What in the Hel are you looking at?” Tep asked as Ide stared at him from across the table. Maibe would have been more subtle in the act, perhaps sneaking glances over a teacup or a book. He’d had many people try to stare at him without being noticed over the years, and it never worked out for them. Maybe that’s why Ide wasn’t even trying, she just watched him through narrowed eyes, her gaze never wavering. Until he spoke, of course, then even Ide’s infallible stare flickered a little. “I’m trying to figure out what your game is,” she responded after a solid minute. He scoffed. “My game? What’s that supposed to mean?” “I have never seen an esprite work with humans,” Ide shook her head. “Not even ones that hate the Fey. So clearly you’re here because you want something.” Why bring this up now, of all times? Ide had been a part of the Dukhov agency for over three months now, even if she’d been gone for half that time. So what was with the sudden interest, or rather, suspicion, of him? All of that should have been gone after the sisters had had their little catch-up pow-wow. Unless... Maibe hadn’t told Ide about him, had she, about how they’d met? But he didn’t express any of this, he simply lifted himself up by his sinuous wings and plopped his entire three inches in front of Ide. “Well, shit on a stick, I guess you caught me.” He threw up his hands. “The truth is, my real goal is to squeeze my entire body in between your sister’s tits and motorboat to my heart’s content.” He demonstrated, and Ide looked a little ill. But the tension in her features broke as the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “You’re a strange little... thing, you know that?” Though he opened his mouth to protest, Tep quickly changed his mind when he remembered that she could squash him like an ant whenever she felt like it. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” With impeccable timing, the door leading to the front room swung open, and Maibe strutted in with an especially gregarious grin on her face. “Alright, lads, shove those biscuits down your gobs ‘cuz we’ve got ourselves a job.” “You look happy,” Ide commented, not moving. Tep’s pointed ears shrank backward. “Too happy.” With the grin ever-widening, Maibe pulled up another chair and plopped down between the two of them. “It’s at the theater, the newer one, just a few blocks over, oh, what was its name, the Joyce?” “The theater,” Ide rested her chin in her hands. “That’s a strange place for a monster to be.” “Apparently the Joyce has recently become haunted,” Maibe clapped her hands together in delight. “Okay, great. But why the, uh, display?” Tep sighed. “Maibe thinks she’s an actress.” “I don’t think, I am,” she insisted. “For the last damn time, Women of the Night don’t count as actors.” “Former Woman of the Night,” crossing her arms, Maibe glared down at Tep. “And you try acting turned on when a fifty-year-old count comes rolling through that door with a stomach the size of a keg of ale.” “You said the theater was haunted?” Ide interrupted, not wanted to hear where this conversation was going. Maibe brightened again, nodding emphatically. “Aye, props moving on their own, sets falling down, cold spots. The usual sort of poltergeist activity.” “A ghost?” Ide raised an eyebrow. “Really?” “For the love of the Earth’s Greens, we’ve seen more monsters than a naïve bar wench on a bad night, and you still refuse to believe in ghosts?” “There’s just no proof in it,” Ide crossed her arms defensively. “There are plenty of creatures that can cheat death, but to come back from it? It’s unnatural, we all must return to the Earth when it’s our time.” Maibe’s face scrunched up in frustration, but a second later she shook her head and stood up. “Alright, fine, let’s go to the theater then and when it turns out to be a poltergeist I get to say I told you so.” Chuckling, Ide stood as well and shook Maibe’s outstretched hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” “Well, alright, you two have fun,” Tep waved them away from the table. “And uh, don’t bother checking the whiskey cupboard when you get back, because it’s all going to be gone.” “Oh no,” Maibe grinned maliciously, scooping him up and bringing him to her face. “You’re coming with us. I’m going to show you just how well I can act.” The two sisters locked up the office and began the short walk to the theater. Despite it being a cool morning, Maibe’s cheeks burned bright red. For even from inside his pouch at her belt, she could hear Tep laughing all the way. ~~ o ~~ “It all started about a week ago,” the director, who had introduced himself only as Malcolm, confessed with a heavy sigh. They were talking in hushed tones at the back of the theater, while the actors were busy rehearsing on the tall, somewhat creaky wooden stage. “This is only our fourth production since the theater was built. How can we be haunted?” Maibe took a breath to no doubt go into exhaustive detail about that very topic when Ide interrupted her. “We haven’t determined that it’s a ghost yet, sir,” she stated somewhat pointedly. “Well, I don’t know what else it could be,” the director looked even more worried. “So, what exactly has it been doing?” Maibe asked, regaining the director’s attention. He looked around, keeping a special eye on the actors up on the stage. “May I ask what all this secrecy is about, sir?” Maibe drew his eyes back to her. “You’ve been swiveling like a bloody owl since we got here.” He sighed. “Actors, ironically enough, can be terrible drama queens. You let some of them know something’s gone wrong, and the headline of tomorrow’s paper will be ‘Local Theater Facing Closure Due to Ghost Activity.’” “Anyway, about the activity. As specific as you can, if you please,” Ide added. “Right, of course. At first, it was just small things, some cold spots, props getting moved around, people hearing voices when they’re alone,” the director shrugged. “But about two days ago the happenings started to become more violent. Our leading man got locked in the dressing room, to which I and the owner have the only keys, and several of the actors have gotten very threatening messages, all found in various places around the theater.” “Messages—” Ide began. “And before you ask, none of them seemed connected to each other, and no one recognized the handwriting.” “We’re just trying to cover our bases,” Maibe assured him. “In these kinds of hauntings, we need to make sure we’re meticulous, otherwise certain skeptics won’t believe us.” She shot Ide a look when the director’s head was turned. Clearly, however, he hadn’t been listening. “Ah, Emilie,” he waved at the girl who had just opened the heavy theater doors. “Will you come here for a moment?” The girl jumped a little at the mention of her name, but scurried over, nonetheless. “Y-yes, sir?” She was young, probably not yet twenty, with thick, brown hair and watery eyes. The director put his arm around her shoulder protectively. “Emilie here was the first person to experience the activity. These are the hunters I’ve hired to help.” “Oh!” the girl blushed and curtsied a little. “Good day.” “Could you tell us what it was you saw, love?” Maibe asked gently, noticing her fidget. Emilie swallowed, trying to collect her thoughts. “Well, I didn’t really see anything, but, em, it happened while I was practicing alone at night, after everyone else had gone home. I remember it was late because they’d taken the curtains away for cleaning, and I thought the stage looked very odd without them. You see, I play Dodger, the killer’s final victim. It’s my first big part, so I wanted to make sure I got it right.” “Go on,” Ide shifted her weight impatiently. “Well, anyway, I’m saying my lines, and then right when the killer is supposed to off me, I heard someone whisper his line in my ear, with this ice-cold breath. But when I turned, nobody was there.” Seeing that the sisters had both become somewhat lost in thought, and that Emilie was getting anxious as they stared at her, Malcolm cleared his throat and ushered her off. “Thank you, love. Now go practice with the rest of the cast, alright? I think they’re waiting for you.” She nodded, and tottered down to the stage as the sisters continued to question the director. They didn’t get all that far, however, because not a minute later there was a scream. As the three turned to the stage, two of the huge sandbags crashed downward with a thump and a creak of the floor, right where Emilie had been standing just a second before. “What happened?” the director called. “McCalley, what the Hel’s going on back there?” “He’s not back there,” one of the actresses was nearly sobbing. “No one is.” Maibe swung around to glare at Ide, a ridiculous grin on her face. “Now do you believe me?” ~~ o ~~ The theater was in utter chaos. Actors were scrambling to and fro, the crew was attempting to figure out exactly what happened, and Maibe and the director were trying to re-establish order. In the midst of it all, Ide was thinking; her mouth drawn tight, her eyebrows low and furrowed. As she did so, a small creature fluttered up and hid between the tresses of her long, ashen hair, lest it cause even more chaos than was already afoot. “What’cha doin’?” Tep asked. “Thinking,” she muttered. “What are you doing out of your case?” She could hear him waving her off. “With everything else, nobody will even toss me a second glance. I’m more interested in what’s got you making an actual fucking facial expression.” “It’s just... it can’t be a ghost, there’s no way,” she shook her head. “After everything I’ve seen, I have never found any evidence of ghosts.” “Well, if it’s not a ghost, then what is it? Sure as Hel looks like a ghost to me.” It wasn’t an accusatory tone he took. Rather, it seemed more like he was trying to... guide her thoughts. Strange for him. Ide shook herself. Focus. “I feel like I’m close. There was something bugging me earlier, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” “Yep, the rope was cut clean through,” one of the crew members called, drawing her attention upwards. “Something about the stage... and that actress, something she said...” “Uh...” Tep seemed to be wracking his pea-sized brain. “Gee, I got distracted. I was kinda thinking about that bottle of whiskey in the cupboard back home. It’s already half-empty...” Ide stopped breathing for a second. “Empty... the curtains! She said the curtains had been missing. But that means... I think I’ve got it figured out.” “Really? Do tell.” “Not yet, I’ve gotta be sure...” Ide steeled herself for the prospect of human communication and strode determinately across the theater. As she approached the young actress, currently being ignored amongst the general anarchy, Ide felt Tep’s weight lift off her shoulder. She would do this alone. “Excuse me, Ms... Emilie,” she began, somewhat awkwardly. “I need to ask you a few more questions. Preferably... away from the stage.” The slight child took in the entire six feet three inches of Ide and blinked for a moment. “Uh, aye, o’ course. We’ll take the back door, if you think it’ll help.” “What you tell me may be incredibly important.” Ide nodded, following behind the actress as she headed through the cramped backstage and through a side door. The air out here was city air, of course, with its usual buzz of activity and miscellaneous smells, though there was always something a little more subdued about it on Sunday afternoons. From the balcony, the city of Kilcara stretched out tendrils into the plains beyond. Cobble streets zig-zagged between the somewhat disparate buildings. Stone, brick, every style and class was represented somewhere; there were even one or two thatched roofs left in the old part of the city. Ide had never liked it. Too much smoke. And the small clusters of trees here and there on the horizon were all that was left of the once deep forest, the lumber that Kilcara had built itself with. “Um, you wanted to talk?” Emilie asked, in a somewhat awed tone. Ide supposed she did look strange, even more so out in the bright sunlight. Sometimes it was so easy to forget. She cleared her throat. “That night you were practicing in the theater: you said there were no curtains, correct?” “Aye, they’d been taken to the cleaners, but what’s that—?” “And you ran through the scene, line for line? Said it all out loud?” “I was trying to get into character, Ms.,” the girl shrank a little under the interrogation. “I wanted my big defeat to be right, so I was trying to, em, embody the character.” “And the scene? How does the scene go?” “W-well... Dodger b-brags that he could stand up to anyone, a-and then the killer comes and, well, d-dramatic irony ensues.” “I don’t know what that means.” “He... he kills him.” Turning away, Ide thought for a moment. She was almost positive now that her theory was correct. She wished it wasn’t. This was going to be a bitch and a half to take care of. “Shit,” Ide sighed, and turned to leave. “Excuse me,” Emilie interrupted, before shrinking back as Ide glanced her way again. “Why all the questions about that night? You... you don’t think I’m responsible for all of this, do you?” “Actually, I do.” Though she had been about to leave it at that, the look of horror and confusion which leapt onto the child’s face was almost pitiful, so with a shake of her head, Ide patted Emilie on the shoulder—a little awkwardly—and leaned back on the balcony’s railing. “Sorry, let me clarify. I don’t think you’re a perpetrator by any means, but make no mistake, you are the reason for this ‘poltergeist’.” “I’m sorry, but you’ve lost me entirely.” “Okay, uh... ah, by the soil, I’m not... good at talking. Um... what do you know about magic?” Emilie wracked her brain for a moment. “Not much,” she confessed. “I’ve heard that it used to exist a long, long time ago. There used to be powerful magicians and floating cities. But then the Catastrophe happened and it just... disappeared.” “That’s... not quite the case, at least as I understand it.” Ide struggled. “Ah, it’s very complicated, but what you need to know is that the Catastrophe was caused—as far as we’re aware—by a misuse of magic. And in the process, magic broke. No one can simply use it anymore, but it still exists. It’s more wild, more chaotic. Every time we think we’ve figured out how it works, it does something that doesn’t fit. But the one thing we do know is that it acts strongly towards words.” “Words? Magic? What does all this have to do with our poltergeist?” “You see, there’s a reason that curtains are always used on a stage. They act as a... I guess, metaphorical barrier, a separation between the real world and the story on stage.” “But the night I was practicing, there were no curtains,” Emilie’s eyes widened. “Exactly! So, when you, uh, acted, you believed in the scene so strongly that the magic tried its best to fulfill the action. It took the part of the killer to act opposite you.” As Ide kept talking, however, Emilie’s eyes darkened. “But if it’s trying to act out the scene, then that means...” “That it’s been trying to kill Dodger, or you, yes, So it—... Oh,” Ide realized her words only after tears began to well up in the girl’s eyes. “I should have been a... little more tactful with that.” “D-does this mean I... I’m going to die?” “Uh, no, no!” Ide sputtered, utterly at a loss for what to say. “I mean, that’s how the magic works so usually it’d be yes, but—” “What my sister means to say is that you’re not going to die, cuz we’re going to stop it before it’s got the chance.” Ide breathed a sigh of relief as Maibe appeared in the doorway. “But... but how?” The girl wrung her hands together, her face very red. Ide felt like an idiot. This poor child didn’t need to be any more scared, and yet she’d just had to open her stupid mouth. “Cuz we’re hunters, love,” Maibe brought Emilie in for a warm hug. “That’s our job. Now, as far as we’re aware, nothing’s happened outside of the theater, right?” Emilie nodded, sniffling. “Alright. It probably won’t stay that way forever. The magic will only get stronger the longer that scene is unfinished, but for now, I want you to get out of the theater, go home, and get some rest, aye?” “But what about—?” “I will talk to the director for you, don’t worry your wee head about it.” “Thank you,” the girl wiped away the few tears that had begun to smear her stage makeup. With a pat on the head from Maibe, she turned and made her way back through the building and out of sight. “And get someone to walk you home!” Maibe called, before turning back to Ide, a sheepish look appearing on her face. “So, uh, I guess you were right this time,” she admitted. “Point goes to Ide,” Tep’s voice came muffled from the case. “Score stands at four to three, in favor of Ide.” “It’s not a competition,” Maibe crossed her arms. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you were winning.” Though she looked about ready to smack him, Maibe ignored the imp and smiled glumly at her sister. “And here I was hoping I’d finally get to see a real ghost.” “I told you, ghosts don’t exist,” Ide sighed, exasperated. “Just because you don’t believe in them doesn’t mean they’re not real,” Maibe pointed dramatically at Ide. “Someday you’re going to eat those words.” Ide laughed. “We’ll see. For now though, we’ve got a promise to keep.” “Not to worry,” Maibe grinned. “It’ll still need a little refining, but I think I’ve got a plan all worked out...” ~~ o ~~ The director was not happy. “Wait, are you telling me that you want me to change the entire ending of the play?” He, Maibe, Ide, and Tasha Rornikov, the foreign playwright all the way from Sir’ka, were all sitting in the green room below the stage. Disappointingly, the room was not green at all, but a rather dull shade of off-white. “Like I just explained,” Maibe sighed, “the only way to stop the magic’s rampage is to nullify its mission. If Dodger is saved in the play, then it has no reason to try to kill his actress.” “But Dodger’s death is the entire climax of the play,” the playwright groaned. “Without it, the play loses its carefully built tension. It’ll never work, we’ll be laughed out of the theater. My reputation in this country will be ruined. I’ll never get a play off the ground again!” Ide’s eyes grew very dark, very quickly. “Frankly,” she said, “I don’t give an arse about your reputation. Would you sacrifice the life of an innocent girl just to save your bloody reputation?” The playwright paused, actually seeming to consider the proposition, before she sighed and ducked her head sheepishly. “No, you are right of course. I’ve had to make more drastic changes before. I’ll make it work somehow.” “Please do,” the director muttered somewhat under his breath. “For the theater’s sake.” “Then there’s one more matter to attend to,” Maibe seemed to be anticipating something. “The magic will get stronger, and more desperate, when the scene itself is being acted out. One of us should be on that stage, you know, to protect the girl in case something should go wrong, and it just so happens that we have a relatively seasoned actress among us.” “You’re right,” the director cut in. “I think Ms. Ide would be perfect for the role we have in mind.” “For the Inspector?” Tasha squinted. “You know, it might just be perfect. She’s strong and silent, just like the character.” As Maibe sputtered under her breath, Ide was looking a little queasy. Of course, in the end, she had to accept the role. Tep somehow managed to hang on until they were just out of earshot of the two, then began laughing hysterically as Maibe’s cheeks grew bright red. ~~ o ~~ Up on the catwalk above the stage, her legs dangling over the edge, Maibe was sulking. Below her, the actors were warming up and the director was running through some final notes with Ide, who looked even paler than usual. “That could’a been me down there, you know?” Maibe sighed in Tep’s general direction. “Getting yelled at for not doing everything exactly the way the director wants it, sweating under the lights in a thick costume...” Tep, sitting on the railing’s middle crossbar, scrunched his face into a strange expression as he attempted to get his mouth around a sweet that was nearly as big as his head. “Why do you want to be an actress so badly again?” “Aw, you silly bugger. All that stuff’s part of the fun of it. And where’d you get that sweet anyway?” “Wouldn’t you like to know?” “Yes, I would.” Tep lifted his head to the sky, quite proud of himself. “Swiped it from a bowl in the women’s dressing room.” “And I’m sure that’s all you went in there for.” “Of course. And I’m appalled you could possibly think otherwise.” Maibe chuckled, though a little half-heartedly. “Hey,” Tep frowned. “Just be happy you’re doing something in this plan. All I’m doing is sitting on my ass and giving myself a sugar hangover.” “Yeah, ‘extra set of eyes’ is a really important job. Well,” she sighed. “I guess you can’t get the glory every time. I’ll just be happy to see Ide out of that get-up.” “I think it might be about twenty sizes too small,” Tep agreed. “They tried to squeeze her into a damn kid’s costume by the looks of it.” The two of them had a good laugh up there on the catwalk, trying to defy the tension that was slowly building on the stage below. ~~ o ~~ Emilie stood in the wings, just off the darkened stage. It was cold; she had been shivering all night, though no one else seemed bothered. The thing, the magic, the Killer, it was watching her. She had felt it breathing on her neck the entire night, like it knew its moment was coming. This part was scary, not just because it could go horribly wrong, not just because she might not be alive to make the long climb up to her small room above the tanner’s tonight, but also because they had never actually rehearsed the new ending to the scene, and that almost scared her more. “In order to make this new ending ‘real’ to it,” Ide had explained, “we need to make a lot of people believe in it, so that it can’t deny its new reality. Rehearsing it will just make it angry.” So here they were: opening night, never actually having practiced the ending to the damn play. Emilie felt sick to her stomach. There were far too many variables for her liking. And yet, it was here. The lights were low, the audience hushed in anticipation. It was time for her big scene. She sent out a little prayer to the soil that it would not be her last. “Ah,” she said, tumbling out onto the stage in her brown tatters, “this looks like a good place to rest me weary bones tonight.” The tension from the audience was palpable. But there was something more there. She could feel it in her bones. It was like the Killer really was here, watching her. Like she really was a street urchin alone on a cold autumn night. “That inspector was absolutely barmy,” Emilie, or Dodger, continued. “’These streets aren’t safe.’ Don’t’cha know that I’m the king of these here streets?” From behind, she heard an eerie banging, and nearly jumped a foot in the air. The audience probably thought she was an amazing actress. Maybe someday she’d be this skilled, but right now she was just scared out of her mind, plain and simple. “What was that?” she remembered that she had to actually talk after a second. And that she also had to calm down. “Ah, twas nothin’ but the wind.” Emilie had to continue, had to keep saying her lines. Even though each one was bringing her a word closer to when Dodger was supposed to die. And to think she’d wished for a dramatic death scene. “It truly does whistle in these alleys.” Sweat was beginning to form on her brow. She was hoping the audience would read it as false confidence. “Although it might be best having somethin’ to defend meself.” She could feel it now, growing closer and closer. There was an odd tingle on the back of her neck, and a metallic taste in the air. But still onward she marched like a soldier to a battle he knows he’s doomed to lose. She didn’t want to come home in a box. “You wanna try somethin’, you piss-drinker?” The stick she wielded shook horribly in her hand. “Stop skulking in the shadows and let me kill you like a man!” Here it was. This was the moment. She could hear the audience, men, women, even a few children, gasp in awe at something behind her. But she couldn’t bring herself to look. With a light-blue glow at the corner of her vision, she could feel the breath on her neck like ice. “Would you like to try?” The anger, the hunger of the thing nearly brought her to her knees. Right now, this thing existed with only one goal in the whole universe: to end her life. Emilie groaned. The moment hung in the air for centuries. “Freeze or I take your head,” said a low voice. There was an audible gasp from the audience as the Inspector, tonight played by an incredibly tall woman with stark white hair, emerged from the shadows off stage right. The Killer froze for a moment, its surface rippling and crackling in confusion. It looked at Ide, waiting. “It looks like I arrived just in time.” Emilie tried her hardest to suppress a groan. That was the flattest delivery she had ever heard. If she’d auditioned for the company with a performance like that, she’d be laughed right out of the country, all the way to the Wastes. Peaking over at the audience, it was clear that they were not buying the performance either. A woman in the front audibly yawned. But more importantly, the Killer wasn’t buying the change. It didn’t scoff, or grin, or even acknowledge Ide’s presence in the slightest. It simply turned back towards Emilie, the “Inspector” already forgotten. “Uh, freeze, criminal,” Ide was really struggling now with the crowd’s eyes on her. Of course, the Killer didn’t listen; it just kept coming. Emilie did as they had told her: don’t move, don’t react. Any denial of its reality will help. Yet at this very moment her heart was beating clear out of her chest. “I said freeze!” Ide stepped in between the Killer and Emilie, swinging her sword, but it batted her swing aside like it was nothing. Ide flew across the stage, and now, there was nothing to stop it. “No, please,” Emilie squeaked, dropping her exaggerated accent, but it was too strong now. It had to fulfill its narrative, the one she had created. It had to kill her. “Ms. Inspector!” Suddenly, a new voice bellowed from off-stage right, and everyone, including the Killer, froze. The other hunter, Maibe, barreled onto the stage, her orange curls bouncing as she sucked in great breaths of air. Almost like she’d been running a long distance, even though the backstage was incredibly small. “Uhh...” Ide blinked, clearly at a loss for what to do with this new development. But Emilie hadn’t taken Malcolm’s improvisation seminar three times for nothing. “It is awfully hard to see in the dark, but I think it’s... the Lieutenant.” She winked meaningfully in Ide’s direction. “O-of course, I can see her now,” Ide finally caught on. “Inspector!” Maibe faux caught her breath. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! You great lump, you’ve forgotten your handcuffs. How are you supposed to catch a criminal without them?” As she pulled out a prop pair of handcuffs, Maibe held them out for the audience to see, and for the first time, the Killer seemed to be paying attention to what was happening on stage. Its eyes followed the handcuffs nervously. Ide’s questionable believability had taken the audience out of the experience, but Maibe had drawn them right back in. They believed in the handcuffs, and now so did it. It began to back away, as Maibe tossed Ide the handcuffs. The taller woman raised her sword once more, and though the Killer prepared to defend itself with its large knife, it didn’t stand a chance. With one swing Ide knocked it from its hands, and in one fluid motion she moved behind it and had both of its wrists handcuffed. It struggled, howling with sounds that no human could produce, but it was muffled by the applause of the crowd. The three held their poses until the curtain came down. The instant the velvet sheets met the Killer vanished so completely that it seemed as if it had never been there. The space, the reality that the stage had created was gone, and so too was the magic. It would only be later, when she thought about it, that Emilie realized that the only prop handcuffs the company possessed had been locked away in storage during the time of the performance. One last bit of magic that she’d never get to ask them about... ~~ o ~~ “I dunno, it seemed sort of... abrupt at the end, the way they jes caught the killer.” As they left the theater, two of the patrons discussed the play. “I know, it seemed like he hardly killed anyone at all.” The Sisters Dukhov stood outside the theater, at the bottom of the stone brick steps, chuckling as they heard the commentary. After thanking them profusely again, tears streaming down her face, Emilie had left to hear the director’s notes, so it was now just the two, err, three of them. “Well sis, I must admit, this one’s all on you,” Maibe grinned. “Here I was hollering that you couldn’t have an open mind, when I was the one with my head up me arse the whole time.” “Thanks, but uh, even though it wasn’t a ghost this time, next time it might be.” “You don’t really believe that.” “Not really,” Ide looked down, a small, embarrassed smile crossing her face. “But I could always be wrong.” “Well, anyway, you saved my bacon, so thanks.” “What are sisters for?” By this point, the sun had long since set, and that strange hour of twilight was falling upon the smoky city. Yawning, Ide stretched and stood. “Well, I’m beat. I’m gonna head back. You coming?” “In a few minutes,” Maibe replied. “Go on then, I’ll catch up with you.” By this point, the crowd emerging from the theater had first become a stream, and then a trickle. Tep flew out of his pouch and plopped next to Maibe on the brick wall in front of the doors. After only a minute, Maibe realized something was wrong. “You alright, half-pint?” she asked him. “I dun think I’ve ever heard you shut yer yap for this long.” “Look, I... I take it back, okay?” He somehow seemed to be an even brighter shade of red than usual. “Pardon?” “You are a good actress.” It seemed as if Tep was in pain trying to get the words out. “If you hadn’t stepped in just then, that kid would be a pile of guts on the stage. You made that audience believe what was happening. So I guess you proved your damn point.” Maibe laughed then, loudly, throwing her head back, and Tep jumped a little. “Ah, you silly thing,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “I don’t give a Leprechaun’s backside about what the audience thought.” “W-well then, why’d you make such a big stink about it?” he huffed. Maibe turned to him. “Because I care what you think. And Ide, o’ course. But I wanted you to see it.” Tep was really glad that he was already red for once. “Why?” he mumbled. “I’m just a little thing in your pocket.” “A very judgmental little thing,” she corrected. “And I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.” She grinned impishly.

“You know what? I take it all back.” “Nuh uh, it’s far too late now. I’ll remember those words forever and ever.” Maibe’s laugh and Tep’s protests carried out long and far, twisting through Kilcara’s many streets and alleys. For the night they could rest, but soon those streets would bring out another adventure for them. Hopefully sooner rather than later, so that they could all continue their slightly worrying whiskey habit. But if not forever, at least they would all be able to drink in peace tonight.