Randy by name

Randy by nature. That was always the joke at school. Everyone knew about Randy. What is it they say? Those who protest too much? Always on at Swotsy because she was good at football. Always too keen to wrestle with Joe. Now, watching them take positions again, Randy's hand shook on the trigger.

Daisy stubbed out her cigar and flicked a coin over to Kitten. She slipped it into the Wurlitzer by the bar knowing just which song Vi and Joe would want. It was their tune.

A reverent hush fell on the bar as they began to move. Joe's graceful, unearthly strength, Vi's feline flexibility. They circled one another like panthers. As Vi performed a triple flip across the bar-room floor, Joe caught her easily in his arms, her smooth caramel thighs wrapped round his waist. Her head rested for a moment on his shoulder - cheek against collarbone, parting lips, darting tongue over aching canines. As Violet blinked it was like she could see the blood coursing in Joe's jugular only a couple of centimetres from her mouth. Ultra-violet that's what the women called her. If you ever needed to find a vein, Vi was your girl.

'I love you Violet,' Joe whispered hoarsely as he spun around and around. She knew this was the time for her to lean back into the twirl, fling her arms back away from him when every cell in her body hungered for him. Her thighs tensed. Something else - the woman, not the hunger in her, surfaced. She looked at him, her pupils fathomless and black. 'We can leave, just you, and me, and James, it's not too late ...'

'It is Joe.' As she straightened up, and the room revolved around and around them, blurring and spinning, she whispered, 'it's too late for me.'

'No,' Joe tightened his grip on her. 'My mission. Your father's mission ...'

'Jack?' Vi's eyes snapped open.

'He's not your real father Vi. I found out a couple of years ago. He was Special Ops, just like me, but he's been under cover right from the beginning. This goes back centuries Vi. This time we have a chance to catch the big man himself. Jack loved you like a daughter,' Joe whispered in her ear as they caught their breath before the big lift. 'But there was a switch. Bitsy and Gideon ...'

'Gideon Stone? He was my father?'

Joe glanced quickly at Randy to check he still stood at the other end of the bar. As he turned away from Vi, backing towards Randy, one leg swung lazily behind the other. 'Jazz hands!' he hissed. Vi, stumbling, began to shimmy.

'Only biological,' Joe whispered as they grapevined. 'He hoped, as a Dwarf Prince ...'

'Dwarf Prince?'

'You know, like the Romany's have princes?'

'I had no idea ...' Vi slipped her arm around Joe's muscular waist and they span together, his arm around her, his beautiful face smiling sadly down at her.

'He hoped with pure dwarf blood he'd put an end to this curse, this hunger that has plagued women for centuries ...'

'The hunger?' Vi bluffed.

'Eternal youth,' Joe's eyes narrowed. 'Women will spend anything on face creams, that's how the Monsieur came to hear about the Creme de Nain - the dark face mask, the extraordinary beauty of the women on this part of the coast. He had no idea what he had started. Women will do anything ...'

'You have no idea,' Vi licked her lips. As they danced, she could smell him, his warm tanned skin like a perfect crust, like creme brulee, and beneath the hot sweet blood.

'Vi, look at me.' Joe cupped her hand in his face. The routine was reaching its climax. 'I know.' She hissed, baring gleaming fangs. Part of him wanted her to bite him then. Then he would be with her, and she with him, and he would be just like his father Bill. Bill, who had brought all of this trouble here after he picked up a lone traveller one night on his run north from Suffolk to the Irish ferry. Monsieur he called himself. An Eastern European. Just passing through. Transyllvania, originally, he said. Bill picked up hitchhikers all the time in his lorries. A bit of conversation helped to pass the time, he said.

Like the stars in the heavens falling into alignment, the hunger of Bill's passenger, and his mother's fabled beauty recipes using Irish bog mud (some called them spells, but not to Bill's face) met in a coastal seaside town of circus folk famed for its warm radioactive waters.

'I know what you are Vi. I know what my father has done to all the women in this town ...'

'Go!' she hissed. Her eyes were like pinpricks now, the irises glowing emerald green. 'He's just a pawn. It's the Monsieur you have to stop. He knows what women will do to preserve their beauty. If the secret Creme de Nain goes into worldwide production, mankind is doomed and vampires will rule the earth, just as the books have warned. Save mankind, Joe.' For a moment, he saw the girl he had never stopped loving, heard their laughter in the backyard, felt the warm summer air embrace them as they danced together one last time. 'Save yourself, save our son. There's a boat coming at midnight to take the next boatload of dwarves to safety.'

'Why? Why do you still save them?'

'It was a promise to Gideon, just before the dwarf catcher ... Randy,' Vi glanced over Joe's shoulder, 'killed him. It's too late for us. The women of this town are doomed to eternal beauty, but in exchange we take only what we need to survive - dwarf cats, hamsters ... Bill still thinks the nuns are catching people ...'

'No,' Joe shook his head. 'He's a monster.'

'We all are,' Violet tossed her hair. To Joe as he began to back away from her for their final lift, she had never been more beautiful.

'I love you Joe,' she whispered. 'Swotsy will help you. Take our son, you must get away tonight. James is the real key, don't you see? Second generation. He is the end to the hunger.'

Joe shook his head. 'I can't leave you.'

Violet tilted her head, a sad smile playing across her lips, her arms outstretched to him as he backed away. Joe stopped a couple of paces in front of Randy. It was like he could feel the barrel of the gun between his shoulder blades. 'Go,' she mouthed, as she ran towards him. Joe braced himself, ready to take her in his arms one last time, to lift her free. But the moment his strong hands touched her stomach, felt the muscles flex beneath his fingertips he knew she had something else in mind.

Vi used Joe's arms like a vaulting horse, flipped over and kicked Randy hard on the side of the head just as he pulled the trigger. Vi took a bullet for Joe. But it wasn't a silver bullet, unfortunately for Randy. As she crumpled to the floor, she shook her head, touched her wounded heart, licked her fingertips. At the scent of fresh blood, every woman in the bar turned towards him. Randy's eyes widened in horror as the gun fell to the floor, spun towards the door and landed at Bill's feet ...

One of Those Nights

"I'll not have you touchin' my little girl!" He grabbed his daughter roughly and a little too familiarly around the waist and hips. "Not when I myself have barely---"

He caught himself just as someone playing an organ offstage hit about fourteen keys simultaneously, musically (if not exactly euphoniously) underlining the shock registering on the faces of those present. Violet's eyes were darting left and right and even -- as a tiny figure scampered by her, headed into the pub -- downwards for a sec. Sister Margaret looked as though she was about to pop Jack one in the snoot. Joe's mother fell backwards through the door still swinging from the dwarf's passage.

And from the alley came a roar: Bill, unleashed by fury, of a sudden moved by hatred of his rival more than he was content to let his disappointment of a son be beaten to death, it was Bill now leaping into the fray.

"He'll be touchin' whatever he wants to touch, Jack McGilligan," Bill's voice boomed, "and whoever come to that!"

Sister Margaret, cool as usual but a little disoriented by the turn of events, turned and popped not Jack but Bill in the snoot, and the old drunk crumpled to a heap there on the sidewalk. The organist, having dropped and then reassembled the sheet music for all this month's shows, struck up "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling." It was a weird but not-bad selection.

Violet writhed out of Jack's grasp and bolted into the pub. Sister Margaret, rubbing her knuckles, seemed to forget her position for a moment. "What," she wondered aloud, "what in the hell

Bill

In the back alley, a tall figure watched the scene unfurling on the street from the shadows. Big Bill Sullivan was not a happy man. He was not a happy man at all. As he cursed quietly under his breath and walked away unseen, back on the street Jack strode over to Violet and Joe. His fists were clenched, short bursts of breath steaming in the night air. He said ....

A Mystery, A History, A Recipe, A Key

a book.

An old photo book.

He opened it up, knowing it came from his mother. Knowing that whatever it was, it was his very own legacy.

And there, in all the pictures, was his mother.

Young, so young. A girl, even. He didn't remember seeing pictures of his mother as a girl, ever.

He wondered why. She seemed to be having such a lovely time. Running around a carnival with another young, beautiful girl. A crowd of girls, it seemed, but most specifically, just one. No, it wasn't a carnival. It was a circus.

He saw the other girl riding on the back of the horses. He saw his mother, amazingly, up in the air, on the high wire. It looked like she was dancing. And then he saw both of them together, their arms clasped and in them middle, a tiny girl, no taller than his arm, standing on their clasped arms. All three of them with the huge, innocent smiles that can only come with youth, with the hope and dreams that exist before the world comes crashing down.

Was it possible that his mother, before she met old Bill who ruined her life, had been a circus performer? It seemed impossible, but here was the evidence right here in front of him.

He turned to the last page, and pasted there, was a key.

He had seen it before. He didn't know where. It wasn't the key to this, his mother's old lock box... that was still stuck in the box in front of him. It wasn't the key to the house-- which he just remembered that idjit Randy still had. But he knew

Cats

he was just a boy, and Alice had moved on too. Last he'd heard, she had stayed sober long enough to film some TV film, some kind of dancing. It sounded spooky to him - something unexpected, tarot cards, but it was very popular on TV in Suffolk ...

Bill stumbled out of the churchyard, his legs as heavy as lead. This is when you want your children to support you, he thought angrily. And what've I got? A hunchback and a bastard. 'Bill Sullivan, you're an idjit, ye get what ye deserve,' he imagined Wilma saying to him in her little sing-song voice. Already he was picturing her up there with the angels, her halo setting off her unnaturally beautiful skin.

Strangely, when her will was read the next day, she left her notebooks to Alice. Everyone knew Bill had been carrying on with her for years, so why Wilma would have left her anything, who knows? Alice was visiting family in Holland with her boy Joe when Wilma died. She'd had a tough time of it since Bill went back to his wife, and her sister May had come up from London to take care of the house and cats. May was in her element - everyone said she was more cat than human. When Wilma's notebooks were delivered by the solicitor's clerk, she couldn't resist reading them. By the time Alice returned with little Joe, her sister was unrecognisable because ...

Tiny Mysteries

Do not doubt my powers just because I am shorter than you."

Bill glanced at the Tarot card and then he looked more closely, from the card to its tiny wielder, back and forth. Good Lord. It was Rowena herself depicted on the card. What was she trying to tell him? Was she trying to tell him anything at all, for that matter?

"What are you trying to tell me?" he said aloud finally. "From what I remember of the Tarot, The Devil is the card of self-bondage to an idea or belief which is preventing us from growing. Is this somehow related to your and Clive's... condition?"

Rowena hissed, she actually hissed at him. The Devil indeed. "Do not try my patience," she said, "and remember what I have told you. "Leave Clive be!" She melted back into the darkness.

So he had lost his wife. He apparently had lost his son Clive as well, if he didn't want to risk the microscopic but probably quite annoying wrath of Rowena. There was still Joe, he supposed, but

Rowena the Gypsy

The question tortured him as he dropped tears on Wilma's still and beautiful face.

She looked just like he remembered her. His moon, his stars, his delight. He didn't understand how he could have tossed her away like that.

"I know who you are," someone said, over his shoulder.

Bill turned around, burdened by the weight of his grief and loss. He saw no one.

"I know you," the voice said again, from below. He looked down at what he first thought was a young girl.

Her eyes were wise. And she was shaped like a woman, dressed in a from fitting black dress and tiny heeled shoes.

She was a dwarf, he realized. He could not help but shudder with revulsion, and then the guilt ate at him.

"What?! Who are you?"

"I'm Rowena, The Gypsy," she said. "And I won't let you hurt him again."

"Hurt who?"

"Clive. Your son. He's mine, and was fated for me. I will live with him and bear his babies. I don't care if he is ten years younger than me, he is mine and I won't let you hurt him again."

"My son? My boy? The dwarf?"

"And what if he is a dwarf?" Rowena the Gypsy spit at him. He stepped back involuntarily and then felt a fool. She could not be taller than 3 feet. "I am one too and you know not what you play at."

He backed away again as she reached into her black clutch purse. Did she have a gun?

She pulled out a tarot card.

The Devil.

"You will always destroy the ones you love." Her voice sent shivers through his spine. "That is your fate. I warn you now--

Bright Moon of the Night

"Nothin', Plum Puddin', nothin," he said, putting the wee, now squalling infant back in the basinet. "Listen to the doctors, Bright Moon of the Night." His voice was soothing to her, but when he turned to the doctor, there was a note of panic. "Can't you give her something to calm her down?" he whispered.

The doctors, looking on him with sympathy, nodded and added something to her IV.

"What is it, Bill? Why will no one talk to me?"

"Relax, Light of the Fairy Circle. Just rest," Bill said, "I'm goin' to head home to the flat and ready it for your arrival, when you wake up, we can go home."

"Okay, Bill," Wilma said, as she floated dreamlessly into the darkness.

That was to be the last time she saw her husband for 16 years.

On the day she and her baby, (whom she loved beyond the moon and the stars, and whom she named after her carnie father,) were to be released, Bill had a taxi waiting for her. The driver had no answers, just that he was to pick up the lady and the babe and take them home.

Where Bill was not.

Until he returned to her 16 years later, hat in hand, saying he had never loved anyone more than he loved her, begging for

Wilma's pregnancy went smoothly. Everyone commented on her beautiful complexion: 'You're blooming!' the vicar shook her hand warmly at the end of the Christmas Eve service. Wilma smiled wanly. Her contractions had started during 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing.' As Bill helped her down the icy church path, gulls wheeled in the leaden sky. She gripped his arm.
'It's time, Bill,' she said. Alarm filled his eyes.

That night, he paced the waiting room floor smoking filterless Camels. By the time the nurse came in to break the news, he was well into his second packet.
'Mr Sullivan ...'
'Where is she?' he barged past the nurse into Wilma's room. She smiled weakly. The dawn light made her pale skin seem luminous. 'It's a boy ...' she whispered as he kissed her.
Bill gazed into the cradle at the side of the bed. The boy's open, beautiful face gazed back at his father - his dark eyes filled with what seemed like inifinite wisdom. To Bill it seemed like he was capable of anything, everything. The blankets were tucked tightly up to the baby's chin.
'Wilma,' Bill murmured, holding back tears of relief and joy. 'He's beautiful.'
'They wouldn't let me hold him ...'
'That's crazy,' Bill smiled down at his boy. 'Come on little fella, let's show your Ma how handsome you are ...' The baby gazed quizzically at him. Never again would he face the world with such openness. Overtime the looks of revulsion and fear would beat Clive down. Never again would he be able to look the world in the eye. With infiinite gentleness, Bill peeled back the blankets. 'Gosh you're a wee little fellow aren't you?' he said slowly as he peeled the last sheets away.
'Mr Sullivan ...' the nurse hovered, uncertain what to say. 'You should wait for the doctor.'
Bill's breath caught in his throat as he exposed his son's tiny, disfigured body. The boy's beautiful face gazed at him. 'Oh no, oh god no ...' tears choked him as he recoiled.
'Bill?' Wilma tried to sit up, her face contorting in pain. 'Bill what is it ....

Bitsy and Wilma

Were in Liverpool, both driving trucks for a local haulage company. The boss loved Bill like his own son, and had them on an easy route down to Suffolk. One of the stops was picturesque village, where Jack had fallen in love with a pretty florists daughter, named Elizabeth. He called her Bitsy. And she had hair like spun gold and the sweetest disposition any one had ever seen.

Bill's wife Wilma was pregnant. She was the light of his life.

He was thankful every day that Wilma agreed to leave the circus to be with him. He couldn't believe that someone as beautiful as she, the trick rider, dancing on the back of a herd of horses in her spangles and ribbons, wanted to be with him, but she did.

Most people run away to the circus when they want a new life, Wilma had run away from the circus. She said her da would hate that she wanted to be one of the regular people, and that was why she had to cut him out of her life. Just leave the circus behind for good, even though he saw her, looking wistfully at the posters on the walls, every time the circus came to town.

She said he was making it up, and all she really wanted was to live in a small town with him, have his baby, and be ordinary. The boss said he'd bankroll a truck depot down there in Suffolk, and put his best guys in charge.

Everything was starting to come together like a dream, until

Vanity

mobile phone, ripped it from the velcro wrapped around his calf. He pressed 1 - the number dialled automatically. It connected.
'Yeah, it's me, Monsieur.' he paused. As a barrage of questions hit him, he held the phone further from his ear. 'Shut up,' he said finally. 'Shut the fuck up. We both know what this is worth. My mother died looking not a moment older than the day she married my father Bill and the secret lies in this town. My mother was beautiful ...' he hesitated. 'I don't care what you say. After everything she'd been through, it was amazing she didn't turn out like her sister:
The voice on the other end of the line died down. 'You need me.' Joe said. 'That's why you dragged me home from Afghanistan. My mother knew how to keep herself beautiful - naturally.' The voice on the other end protested. 'Yeah, I know it will be hard to sell - it's black, it's sticky, it looks like tar - but what would you rather? To look likc Alice's sister? Yeah she was famous but ..' Joe took a deep cool breath of the night air. Nothing was how he remembered. Everything had changed.'My mother died beautiful. You need me because ...

... they would drive out to Bill's farm, and he wished Wilma could've cooked them breakfast. She'd died years ago, but they could still be a real family, just as Clive had always dreamt it could be. It was time for Joe to know - there was nothing stopping them now that Alice had finally drunk herself to death. He remembered going round on Christmas Eve to Joe's place, bringing him a Santa present - though it was really from Bill of course. He found Alice half conscious in a mess of unwrapped presents and paper.


As Clive limped through the street, snow crunching under his specially made thick black leather boots, he imagined a brighter future, where he and Joe would hang out together, go shooting, or just play some pool, watch the game. He saw Joe put his arm proudly round his hunched, deformed back and say 'Have you met my big brother Clive?' He pictured them, laughing round the Christmas tree as they exchanged presents. Maybe this year Bill would even get them that puppy he had always wanted.

He was lost in his thoughts as he cut down the alley at the side of Alice's house. He didn't notice the figure appear from the shadows behind him, or hear the footsteps following him, drowned out by the sound of the crashing surf.
'Hey Clive, where you going?'
Clive turned, confused. The street lamps flared behind the man as he approached. He squinted his eyes, trying to see who it was.
'Oh, it's you ...' he grumbled, and walked on.
The man caught his arm firmly. 'I said, where you going?' his voice was low, menacing.
'I'm going to tell him everything. He has a right to know ...'
'You don't want to do that.' As Clive fought to free himself, the man felt the gun knock against his hand. He pushed Clive hard against the alley wall and dragged the gun from his pocket, shook the rag free. Moonlight glimmered on the barrel.
'Now what's a dirty old cripple like you doing with a beauty like this?'
Clive watched the gun, mesmerised, eyes wide with fear as he realised what was about to happen. 'My Daddy gave it to me,' he said quietly. The other man was bigger, stronger, there was no way he could outrun him. 'Please, I won't say anything ...'
'Sorry. I just can't take that risk,' he said and as Clive opened his mouth to cry out the man pulled the trigger ....

Bill

That's right, Bill.

The guy who had started this whole mess before most of the current players were even born.

Bill, Joe's father. Bill. Clive's own father.

No one knew that Clive was Joe's older half brother. No one knew that Bill had left Clive's mom when she had born a baby who was a monster.

He rubbed the weight of the gun through the fabric.

When Bill had left Joe and his mom, and coming running back to Wilma and Clive, Clive couldn't take it. All he could think about was poor little Joe, all alone. Abandoned just like Clive had been.

That's why, as soon as he was old enough, he had moved to Little Hamptonpoint Valley, and befriended that lonely kid.

Now, he knew it was time for everything to come out and everyone to

Everyone in town knew about Alice's drinking, but because they knew Joe's father Bill had walked out on her, they looked the other way. Bill had just got in one of his trucks one day, driven out of town on a long distance run and never come back. No explanation, no letter, no goodbye. No one knows where he went. All they saw was the damage he left behind - a lonely, heartbroken woman and a boy who had to grow up too quickly.

All Alice and Joe had was the big old house overlooking the shingle beach. Alice had been a showgirl - after a few cocktails she would put an old 78 on the record player in her room and disappear into the comfort of her memories. Joe would find her sometimes, still wearing her sequins and feathers, half asleep in front of the dressing table mirror, red lipstick smudged where she had lain her head on her arm. Alice knew nothing about business - Bill's haulage company went under, and they lost everything. From being one of the town's most respected families, Alice had to endure the pitying stares of her neighbours. If it wasn't for some money left to Alice by her godmother, the boy would have been on the streets. Alice clung to Joe like driftwood. 'You're the man of the house now,' she told him, face blotched with tears and booze.

There was talk, of course. A woman like Alice, alone in a small town. Everyone wondered how she got by, and there were plenty of gentlemen called by in the afternoons doing odd jobs for her. Still the house seemed to fall into decay. The paintwork peeled, leaves went unswept, snow settled deeply around it every winter. But Joe adored his mother, and he was a tough kid who wouldn't hear a word said about her. All the children knew not to tease him about his parents. When Frankie - a skinny ginger kid with sly eyes - had once dropped a remark about how he had seen Alice asleep on the lawn in her nightdress within earshot of Violet, she had laid into him, tiny fists pummelling him until he cried like a girl. Randy stood by, just watching. When Joe heard what Violet had done, he gave her his most treasured possession ....