Scene III: The Jester’s New Suit

The 2nd Day of the 4th Moon, 1536 P.V.

Corax Asylum, Togaduine

Nicolas’s mood over Behmor’s interference past in no time. Deep down, Nicolas enjoyed spending time with his son, and sometimes even bombarded Irkalla with pigeons to force Behmor to pay him a visit. He did not care that the visit was only to complain, he was simply happy to see his son, at least as happy as Nicolas could be given the Nicolai problem that needed resolving.

Nicolas’s deeper problem was that he wanted Allyra not only to marry him, but to love him unconditionally and for who he was. The total success of Plan BAT depended upon it, but Nicolas had no intention of changing who he was in any way, shape, or form. This, of course, exacerbated the problem.

Nicolas did not share all his plans with Behmor, as Behmor had a habit of interfering. Behmor was certainly more or less in the dark about Nicolas’s current plan. Nicolas had fed Chives just enough information to lay the path for Behmor’s slow desensitisation to Nicolas’s Plan BAT, and paid Chives with tribute arms to act as a double agent. It was akin to throwing a dog a bone.

Nicolas decided to leave his Immoless to Bigglesworth for the time being and spent the early hours prowling around his asylum whilst waiting for his new suit.

Nicolas believed that Allyra would be far more attracted to him if he wore something more fashionable than a worn, torn suit that allowed his nob to escape every few minutes. He considered having Ariadne’s bones whipped for the inconvenience caused by tearing his old suit but instead sent the bones to Kane, with Demus, who had a bit of Charmaine thigh saved for Kane too.

Nicolas desperately wanted Allyra to visit Corax so she could fall in love with his home and believed that this would help her in her journey to fall in love with him. Afterall, Fanu’s princesses always found themselves more open to marriage when a wealthy husband was on the cards. Webster proposed that this was not the greatest idea Nicolas had ever come up with, but Nicolas could not, for the life of him, understand why.

Corax was, as far as Nicolas was concerned, a state of the art institution. He maintained a perfectly filthy crypt-level dungeon, with multiple cells, which housed the vampires. Each cell contained a bed with straps and cuffs, chains that hung from the walls, a barred opening panel within the door, so that he could stick his head through to intimidate the inmates, a hidden door in the brickwork that led to and from his secret passages, a shoot for food, a disgustingly mouldy mattress, and a trapdoor on the ceiling.

Beyond the dungeons, the cellar’s damp corridor held an immaculately kept surgical instrument rack, housing the least sterile and most rusty scalpels, scissors, bone saws, and trephines Allyra would ever be fortunate enough to see. The shelves also housed an array of whips and birches. Nicolas did enjoy his petty tortures and fully intended to flog Allyra for her pleasure of course.

The ground floor held a banqueting suite, that only the Nicolai were allowed to use, and a library, that only the Nicolai were allowed to use, and an office that only Nicolas was allowed to use. These stood in the west wing, close to Nicolas’s chambers.

The east wing contained further cells, each was equal to the dungeon cells in its pristine décor, and each contained one or five inmates, depending on how uncomfortable Nicolas wanted them to feel. The first line of cells, as previously explained, held his favourite tributes, for quick and easy access. There were also soiled gurneys, and horrifically over-sized wheelchairs strewn around the corridors with unfortunate tortured beings strapped into them, and sometimes, the remains of unfortunate beings strapped into them.

The beings held in the wheelchairs were not unfairly tortured. They were punished for attempting to escape. Legs and eyes were commonly removed for such transgressions, thus requiring the innovative Billyboxes commissioned by Nicolas and created by Webster. In the spirit of fairness, legs were removed on the first escape attempt and eyes on the second, and filthy bandages were provided to mask the hideous empty orifices.

The inmates consisted of a diverse population of general thesapien inmates, lower vampires, and thesapien tributes. Red-haired tributes were Nicolas’s favourite of course.

There was also a meeting hall and chapel on the ground floor. Nicolas insisted on a meeting hall, so that he could randomly round up the inmates and give pointless speeches or make meaningless announcements. Nicolas was quite sure that Allyra would enjoy his lengthy speeches on how marvellous he was.

All corridors in Corax were covered in mirrors and loudly clanging clocks, and Nicolas’s modest office sat by the great front entrance.

Nicolas had traded six of his finest tributes, after inflicting Moons of debauchery on them, with Irkalla in exchange for his medical license, and recognition by The Thesapien Medical Board that he was, indeed, a Doctor of Psychiatry. Of course, Nicolas had no intention of learning either medicine or psychiatry as he found cure was bad for business.

This hellish elevation allowed Nicolas to declare anyone he saw fit as insane and lock them up against their will. He would then make a concerted effort to drive them insane, therefore proving that they deserved locking up in the first place. Once the inmates were completely bonkers, Nicolas would use the corrective facilities to correct them.

Initially, this was not an ideal situation, as it undermined the thesapien sacrificial tribute service. Nicolas did not care, and Behmor eventually accepted it as in the long run Nicolas would tire of one inmate or another and end their lives, giving them a one-way ticket to Irkalla.

Behmor would always find a home for them in Mortraxis, or Judicara. Occasionally he would receive an intelligent soul who would be allocated a menial and tiresome job in Irkalla’s civil service. This suited everyone, especially Behmor who spent more time finding ways to avoid work than actually doing it.

The ground floor also offered special facilities for the Nicolai including the games room, the Nicolai lounge and the south wing. The south wing was out of bounds, but rumour had it, that it was a lavish suite of rooms dedicated to Nicolas’s Nicolai. No one knew exactly what the Nicolai did in there, only that they spent a lot of time in there away from the smelly inmates. The first floor of the asylum held a series of torture chambers, designed by Nicolas, Archie and Webster.

Nicolas loved the corrective facilities and was especially proud of the bespoke iron maiden, the brazen bull, and his hall of mirrors. The iron maiden had been home to a single inmate for some fifteen centuries, and Webster had devised a series of drips to ensure such longevity.

Nicolas knew that Allyra had been boiling his vampires and assumed that she too would fall in love with his corrective facilities.

Above the corrective facilities was a second floor known as ‘The Second Floor.’ The apartment on the second floor was off limits. Only Nicolas used it, and no one knew what lay beyond the padlocked door.

Above the second floor was a third floor which the Nicolai used for undisclosed reasons, everyone assumed it was their sleeping quarters, and the attic held the washrooms. The washrooms were an open plan series of rooms that spewed out sewage for the inmates to wash in. Nicolas liked to cut the thesapiens beforehand to ensure that they received the best treatment possible, and as such, infection was rife. Nicolas found the sweet smell of infection most pleasing.

Nicolas occasionally earmarked an inmate for special treatment. The special treatment consisted of one thousand small lacerations followed by prolonged exposure to the sewage. He would have Chives chain the inmates concerned under the sewage and would visit everyday to watch their slow and obscene decline.

Nicolas did not sleep much, or at all, and was wandering about waiting for Stacia to injure herself in some way in the dark room. He desperately wanted to speed things along with the first two immolesses so he could focus all of his attentions on bullying Allyra into loving him.

In his boredom, Nicolas spent an hour tinkering with one of his pocket watches. He prided himself on his mastery of horology, and whilst concentrating on the tiny, intricate mechanisms he found that the voices in his head would settle down.

He then turned his attentions to his troublesome chair.

The chair in Nicolas’s chambers had been levitating for two weeks. Nicolas loved to write, he constantly collected old blank parchments and bound them, then wrote on them in red or yellow ink. He considered himself the greatest author in The Deep but never showed anyone his work as he hated sharing. The sudden urge of the chair to float had made writing somewhat more difficult. When Nicolas sat on it, it also spun around, so that Nicolas was obliged to write quickly at each turn. This slowed his prose and he decided to share his concerns with anyone who would listen.

Nicolas tried to get the inmates to listen to his problems first. He crawled on all fours, like a tiger, from cell to cell complaining about the levitating chair. The inmates were not as interested as he had hoped, largely because most were in a frightfully bloody state, asleep, had chunks missing from their bodies, were in a coma, or dead.

Nicolas did not move the dead; he left that to Chives. Chives would take them to the scullery for preparation. The smell did not worry Nicolas, he considered it a luxurious perk to the overall ambience of the asylum, and an odour that Allyra would come to appreciate.

Discouraged by the lack of interest from the inmates, Nicolas decided instead to write a letter of complaint. He wrote the letter in his office which housed a much more reasonable chair, folded it in half and stuck the ends together with a bit of tribute-brain that had been lodged between his teeth. The letter was addressed to Behmor and read,

‘B,

The second Immoless arrived far too early and I am inundated with floating chairs. The inmates are being unreasonably hostile, and Robert is late as usual.

Love Dad.’

Nicolas’s letters were always prone to exaggeration, nonsense, and theatrics, and often accompanied a new self-portrait which Behmor would either use as a target for archery practise or as fuel for his roaring open fire. Sometimes Nicolas would send a HORRIFIC self-portrait of his elongated face with a splash of Chester, which Behmor was always thrilled to receive. Occasionally the portraits held little notes like, ‘Don’t burn this one! Love, Dad.’

Nicolas sent his best raven, Ghorab, to carry the message directly to Irkalla. The message was immediately passed to Behmor, as no one in The Deep or in Irkalla wanted to put Nicolas in a tetchy mood. Behmor read it, noted it, and threw it on the fire.

Once Nicolas realised that Behmor was ignoring him, he created a series of notices on individual parchments. Each read

‘I Declare you Insane.’ He returned to the cells and hung them outside of every door. The inmates did not care about that either and Nicolas had misjudged the number of notices required, so there were several parchments left over.

He returned to his chambers climbed up to the barred window and dropped the lot into the drains below.

As Nicolas stared into the blocked drains, he made the strange decision to have a shower. He only washed once a century and though it was not time, he felt that making some level of effort for his bride would not hurt. Needless to say, he did not use the inmate washrooms.

Nicolas despised cleanliness, but to prevent the maggots setting in, once a century he forced himself to stand beneath the constant flow of water that poured into his wetroom. His wetroom was an ensuite, attached to what Nicolas called his ‘chambers.’ Although, on inspection, one would find that Nicolas’s chambers were not as lavish as the words would imply.

The ‘Chambers’ consisted of one large room. The room was an annexe attached to Corax Asylum and could be accessed by a passageway on the spiral stone steps that led from the dungeons to the ground floor. Nicolas had no intention of living in the filth of Corax as people would talk.

The chamber consisted of an unnecessarily large, and unnecessarily filthy bed with yellow and black plaid sheets, blankets and duvets. The pillows matched the bedding as did the curtains. The stains and grub on the bed matched the mould and damp dripping down the walls, and the bars that secured his window aperture offered a heavy claustrophobic feel to the overall aesthetic.

The hallway that led from the annexe’s door and past the ensuite to Nicolas’s bedroom was needlessly narrow, and clocks cluttered the walls, all telling different times.

Inside his room, the window and bed leaned coldly against the lefthand side wall, and a mirror sat on a rickety old dressing table under the window. Another huge mirror, hung on the wall opposite, and next to that an office desk and chair resided, perpetually covered in red and yellow ink, quills and parchments.

The oddity of the room, overlooking the two smaller doors to the far end that were padlocked, bolted and chained shut, was the gramophone that sat on a table next to the wall mirror.

You may wonder why a gramophone would be deemed odd, but this gramophone was quite different to other gramophones.

This gramophone had a rotting head living on it. A skull with a top hat, sunglasses, the odd cigar, a litre of whisky and vocal cords that wandered about of their own accord.

Nicolas had, some forty years before, taken the head of Demize the First, high priest of the DarkBadb at the time. He found Demize’s ongoing interest in his life disconcerting and felt that Demize would gain some propriety in his behaviour in the absence of a body. In other words, Nicolas lopped Demize’s head off for poking his nose in Nicolas’s business.

Other than the Nicolai and Kane, Nicolas had no friends, for reasons that shall become apparent, and found running an asylum a lonely occupation. The head gave him company. The DarkBadb did not request the return of the head, so Nicolas placed it on his gramophone, and he and Archie applied a little magical surgery allowing the head to be possessed by a Nicolai.

After his shower, Nicolas stared at himself in the wall mirror for some time. He was tall and could have been considered goodlooking with his sharp jawline and emerald eyes, but for the wayward globs of blood about his mouth and a thick film of soap avoidance that drenched his skin.

He tilted his head, not impressed with what he saw. The cleanliness of his long, dark-auburn hair that he had just washed, failed to match the overall aesthetic of his skin, that he had not washed. He considered the problem for a moment and then let out a rampant yell,

‘CHIVES! CHIVES!’

A knock came at the door, and the small, wizened ghoul hobbled in. Ghouls were immortals, but unlike other immortals they could not seem to dodge the ageing process.

Chives, having reached his two thousand and forty-seventh birthday, declined on a daily basis. His skin was so thin it was barely visible, his face was gaunt, and his nose had slipped slightly. His eyes were lopsided and he had a rather inconspicuous hump on his back, and a slight limp.

‘Yes, Sir?’ Chives asked.

‘Ahh,’ Nicolas replied, ‘there you are. You’re late, I have been calling for hours.’

Chives hobbled into the chambers, and we will call them chambers for Nicolas’s sake.

‘Sir, I came as soon as you called.’

Chives had turned punctuality into an artform on account of Nicolas stapling his left foot to his right knee and leaving it there throughout the second century P.V. This, Nicolas considered, was a lesson in the consequences of being late.

Chives, having only been in Nicolas’s employee for some one hundred and twelve years at the time proved to be a slow learner. You see, when Nicolas called, he expected his ghoul to know that he would call beforehand and arrive at the moment his dulcet tones bellowed throughout his dwelling. He also expected his ghoul to be somewhat psychic and pre-empt his every demand, however ridiculous.

‘Chives, go to the kitchen and ask Meatcleaver for some used cooking oil!’ Nicolas ordered.

‘Sir?’

‘Did I stutter, Chives?’

Chives sighed. He tried his best to ignore Nicolas’s alters on account of the workload involved in chasing two hundred and sixteen Nicolas’s about all day. One was more than enough.

‘No sir, but…’

‘Goats butt, Chives. You have ten minutes, and if you are late consider it five!’

Chives limped towards the door,

‘Very good, sir.’

Nicolas stared harder into the mirror, then rapped on the glass,

‘WEB-STAR!’

His reflection faded, and a new reflection filled the glass. The man looking back was dressed in a black waistcoat and black shirt and looked a little like Nicolas, only this man had short, slicked back blond hair and wore glasses at all times, occasionally his veins formed spidery webs over his skin,

‘Nicolas. Good dusk,’ Nicolai-Webster nodded.

‘Good dusk to you Webster, now, without dallying, I need to address some recent problems with Plan BAT and our Immoless.’

Nicolai-Webster took off his glasses, breathed on them, polished them on his jacket and slid them back on his nose,

‘What went wrong this time? Make a cunt of yourself again, did you?’

‘That is a most unpleasant word to use, Webster,’ Nicolas began, ‘and no, I did not make anything of myself. It was HER fault. She over-reacted.’

Webster leaned towards the glass. Nicolas reciprocated until the two were nose to nose. Webster smiled,

‘Is that a lump on your head, Nicolai?’

‘No. No. It is a…’

‘Lump!’ Webster looked over the giant purple mountain where Allyra had beaten Nicolas earlier that night, ‘I take it courting failed yet again. What did you do?’

‘Me?’ Nicolas asked, surprised at such a cruel allegation, ‘Why I was the perfect gentleman. I waited until she and Chester had finished their first coital alignment post-Chester’s return’

‘You mean having sex?’ Webster asked, shaking his head.

‘So crude, so crude, but yes. And then I waited a little longer until Chester was asleep. I did not want to alarm the Immoless, so I put my hood over my eyes, unfortunately…’

‘Here we go!’

‘UNFORTUNATELY, the Immoless tricked me and deceived me by placing errant plant pots about her window.’

Webster’s hand slapped onto his forehead,

‘You made a cunt of yourself, didn’t you?’ He groaned.

Nicolas held his head up, and turned his hand over,

‘I made a gallant entrance through her fruity bushes, then inadvertently tripped a few times, but then I saw her approach and surprised her with my divine self.’

Webster shook his head, as he did the skull on the gramophone opened its weary eyes, and took a swig of whisky before lighting his cigar with his vocal cords,

‘Another failure I hear!’ He cackled, before rising above the gramophone, and joining Nicolas in staring into the mirror, ‘Webster, Bigglesworth would be the better man to send.’

‘Bigglesworth indeed!’ Nicolas snapped. ‘He would fall hopelessly in love with her and read her poetry until she died of boredom. That is not in line with the plan, is it Demize?’

‘You’re not doing much better, Nicolai!’ Nicolai-Demize laughed, circling his head. ‘Useless, useless man.’

He puffed a fog of smoke into Nicolas’s face causing Nicolas to choke.

Webster waited until Demize had finished laughing, and Nicolas had finished choking to continue,

‘I want to get this straight, you were creeping around in the bushes, then you fell over, and then you spoke to her at the window. Then what happened?’

‘She seemed mildly alarmed by my presence and hit me with a lump of metal.’

‘That was not in the plan, was it?’ Webster frowned.

‘No, but it is a declaration of love! And that is exactly what we want isn’t it?’

Demize swallowed his cigar, and it instantly dropped out of the remains of his collarbone and onto the floor. Nicolas swatted at the skull, but Demize was far too quick for him,

‘You little freak, you’re going to burn Corax to the ground one of these days.’

Webster thumped on the mirror,

‘Nicolas, put it out!’ He yelled, ‘NOW!’

Nicolas trod on the cigar with his boot, then swatted at Demize again, the agile skull jumped out of his reach and laughed until he vomited whisky from nowhere.

‘Gentlemen,’ Webster interjected, ‘if you have quite finished, we need a new approach.’

‘I did take her to The Sombre and I was pleasant but then I was summoned back with Behmor complaining,’ Nicolas moaned.

‘You sent Chives to Irkalla too early, Dumbass,’ Demize chided.

Just as he spoke a knock came at the door.

‘Enter!’ Webster called. Chives ignored him.

‘Enter you facetious gremlin,’ Nicolas ordered.

Chives entered, but he was not alone. He was accompanied by an angry chef who looked identical to Nicolas except for his dress. He was dressed in a yellow and black plaid chef’s uniform and hat, and carrying a vat of rather unpleasant and overused oil,

‘Why you ask ze old one to carry ze oil?’

‘Good dusk to you too, Meatcleaver!’ Nicolas grinned.

‘I ‘ave enough to do feeding the Nicolai and your lunatics without carrying around oil like a crazy milkmaid,’ Nicolai-Meatcleaver Pierre moaned.

‘That’s why we have Chives!’ Webster explained, calmly.

‘Chives is a weeble is ze not?’ Meatcleaver replied.

‘He’s not a weeble until he’s in a Billybox with wheels,’ Nicolas snapped, ‘until then he carries whatever I tell him to carry.’

‘So wrong, Nicolas. The way you speak is so wrong,’ Webster muttered.

‘I think it’s funny!’ Demize said as he flew about Chives’ head.

Chives ignored the skull and pretended he could not see him. Nicolas pulled a pocket watch from his inside pocket,

‘Meatcleaver, breakfast starts shortly, long day ahead. Perhaps you have other things to be doing? Things that don’t involve arguing with me and my good selves!’

‘I am a good self, am I not?’

‘Of course, you are but go and be a good self in the kitchen.’

‘Fine, be zat way!’ Meatcleaver muttered, then walked out mumbling to himself in some made up language to sound exotic.

‘Lumpy,’ Demize sang, ‘Lumpy, Lumpy,’ he circled about Chives’ head staring at Nicolas’s love wounds, ‘Lumpy, Lumpy.’

Nicolas glared at Demize,

‘You’re only saying that because you are out of reach, however,’ he observed Demize’s position above Chives’ head, ‘I should like to wear you as a hat!’

‘Me Sir?’ Chives asked.

Nicolas hated it when Chives interrupted him talking to himself,

‘Are you a hat?’

‘No Sir, but who are you talking to?’

‘You know full well who I am talking to, Chives, but I do like your ever-growing cantankerous demeanour.’

‘His name is Demetri, Nicolas. You know his name is Demetri, you read his resume,’ Webster sighed.

Nicolas looked Chives up and down and screwed up his nose,

‘His name is Chives.’

‘His name is Demetri…’

‘His name is CHIVES!’ Nicolas bellowed in three deep voices, ‘Case closed, end of story, moving on. And Parsley, you may leave.’

‘Very good, Sir,’ Chives replied, then shuffled out of the door, closed it, and stood close by in case the shouting started again.

‘Theaten, Robert, treats his ghoul, Klouthe, with respect,’ Webster mumbled.

Nicolas rubbed his ears,

‘WHAT?’

‘Never mind, tell us the new plan.’

‘Yes,’ Demize said as he settled on the gramophone and spun the turntable, ‘tell us.’

The needle dropped and a soft classical melody of inmate screams offered a comforting background noise to Nicolas’s ears.

‘I shall show you,’ Nicolas smirked, then yelled, ‘CHIVES!’

The ghoul knocked again and hauled himself back into Nicolas’s chambers without having been invited,

‘Yes Sir?’

‘The suit if you will.’

Chives shuffled to Nicolas’s bed, that Nicolas could quite easily have managed to walk to himself, and pulled a drawer from beneath it. He lifted a new clothing bag, unzipped it and pulled out a remarkably repulsive yellow and black plaid suit with just a hint of burgundy. The same suit he had recently procured. The same suit made to order from the milliner.

All of the best suits were made by the milliner as there had been quite a debacle between the tailor, the cobbler and the milliner that left Sapari, Nicolas’s favourite place to shop, with only a milliner who took on all three jobs.

In the second moon of 1522 P.V., Norick Stensible, a lower vampire from Sapari, was seen leaving the milliner Slaty McQuick’s shop wearing a noticeably taller hat than Nicolas. No one wore a taller top hat than Nicolas. Two days later, the sign outside of the Sapari Tavern mysteriously disappeared only to be replaced by the milliner’s severed head. Slaty’s daughter, Rua, vanished that same week.

Thereafter, no one wore a taller top hat than Nicolas, except, on occasion, Chester, but since Chester was Nicolas, Nicolas could not reasonably complain about it.

Rumours spread throughout Sapari about who had replaced the tavern sign, but Nicolas was not one to indulge in gossip and paid the speculation no attention. Following Slaty’s disappearance, Emilia Victor became Sapari’s new milliner.

In 1528 P.V., Nicolas commissioned Emilia Victor to make him a suit from Thesapien skin. Emilia patiently explained that she was a milliner, not a tailor, and that she certainly did not make garments from mortal skin. Nicolas regarded her response as compelling evidence of insanity and immediately ordered a psychiatric assessment. Naturally, Nicolas conducted the assessment himself, and his findings were seconded by the eminent psychiatrist Dr Riesigerschwanz. Equally naturally, Nicolas declared Emilia Victor insane before the assessment had even begun.

Her replacement was a middle-aged Thesapien woman named Claudia McBurrow, an experienced milliner who had trained in Threnodyl. Wishing to ensure she could satisfy any of Nicolas’s increasingly unpredictable requests, Claudia undertook a rapid apprenticeship with the tailor Mr Occasionally Green and the cobbler Clanky Harris.

Nicolas was deeply unimpressed. He had not granted permission for the milliner to broaden her professional expertise and considered such initiative grossly presumptuous. Mr Occasionally Green disappeared shortly afterwards. Two days later, Claudia entered the tailor’s workshop to find an impeccably stitched suit of Mr Green’s skin hanging from one of the mannequins.

Nicolas allowed Clanky Harris to live. He simply had Demus and Smythe remove his hands. Several weeks later, Nicolas visited the cobbler’s shop intending to commission an exquisite pair of blue-and-yellow Jesus Creepers, only to discover that the business had closed permanently.

Thereafter, the milliner, Claudia, was granted permission to act as Nicolas’s tailor, cobbler and milliner, whilst retaining the title of milliner only. In view of the recent events, she made the sensible decision not to argue the matter.

Chives removed the suit from its hanger and passed it to Nicolas. Nicolas managed to struggle to put on his own clothes, like a big boy, because he did not like being touched. He especially did not like being touched by Chives as he was concerned the old ghoul’s fingers may drop off forcing Nicolas into unwanted surgical work.

Nicolas put on the black shirt and black waistcoat first. He then slid on the plaid trousers that matched the yellow, black and burgundy plaid jacket, then slowly slid the jacket on to impress his small audience. He tied a silk burgundy scarf about his neck, then adjusted the knot, and clicked at Chives to pass the new top hat.

Nicolas lowered the black hat onto his head and stared into the mirror. His reflection sat beside Webster’s smirking face and Nicolas admired himself,

‘Devastatingly handsome!’ He muttered.

He hesitated, looking again at his clean hair, ‘One adjustment.’

He removed the hat, a little quicker than he had put it on and scooped a large handful of cooking oil out of the vat left by Chives and Meatcleaver. He rubbed the oil between his fingers and worked it through his hair. Webster’s mouth opened,

‘That’s vile, Nicolai.’

Nicolas took another handful and added another layer, then gave further instruction to Chives,

‘Rosemary, you may return the vat to Meatcleaver. I’m sure he can use it for the inmates.’

Chives stumbled towards Nicolas.

‘Wait,’ Nicolas said, raising his hand, ‘this is hilarious.’ Nicolas lowered his new trousers just enough to reveal some rather unflattering plaid boxers, with equally unflattering and highly questionable stains, unzipped the fly and turned his back to his henchman.

Webster watched in disgust as Nicolas relieved his bladder into the oil. Demize snorted back a giggle. It took Nicolas some time to finish as a few sprays, drips and drops followed the primary gush,

‘Now you can take the oil to Meatcleaver. Tell him inmates only. If I find out the Nicolai are fed from that vat, Chives, guess who will be operating with only one eye?’

‘Very good Sir,’ Chives groaned, heaving the vat from the floor.

‘And don’t dally. I may need you.’

‘Very good sir,’ Chives wheezed again as he struggled out of the door.

‘What business is on the cards today?’ Webster asked, unwilling to discuss what had just occurred.

Nicolas smiled, he almost looked genuinely happy,

‘I am preparing for our nuptials.’

Webster sighed,

‘This again. Nicolas, until you improve your approach to the Immoless there will be no nuptials.’

Nicolas banged his cane on the glass,

‘There most certainly will. I have a new plan.’

Webster lowered his glasses, breathed on his side of the mirror and polished it with the cuff of his jacket,

‘And what, pray tell, is this new plan?’

‘I shall visit the third Immoless again and tell her if she marries me, I will spare her life.’

‘That’s your plan, is it?’

‘Another stupid idea to match a stupider suit!’ Demize laughed. The head lifted from the gramophone and floated above Nicolas, ‘Why did you order that suit? You look like a fool.’

Nicolas tilted his hat slightly, adjusting his hair to sit behind his ears. His ears pinged outwards in response and made him look like a teapot. Nicolas shook his head and readjusted his hair again and shifted his hat to hide the monstrous ears,

‘This suit is the height of fashion, and my plan is airtight. She cannot refuse.’

The head roared with laughter,

‘She may not, but Behmor will.’

Nicolas knew that Demize was correct, after all, Demize was the critical Nicolai, and

Behmor would only endorse legal contracts, not contracts riddled with duress and issues of capacity. Nicolas thought momentarily then raised his right index finger,

‘I will tell her not to raise the matter with him.’

Webster shook his head,

‘So, let me get this straight, your plan is to coerce the Immoless into marriage by saying if she does not marry you, you will kill her, and then you are going to force her to lie to the king of Irkalla? That’s your plan? Does that make sense to you, Nicolas?’

‘It most certainly does.’

Demize snorted and sniggered,

‘Why not take her on a date?’

‘A what now?’ Nicolas asked, leaning into the floating head.

‘To a restaurant or a theatre.’

Nicolas’s face lit up,

‘What a marvellous idea, I shall build her a theatre here in Corax.’

‘That’s absolutely not what I said!’ Demize chided as he lit another cigar with his vocal cords.

‘Yes, we shall build a theatre, and then she will fall hopelessly in love with my good taste…’

‘Are you in love with her?’ Webster interrupted, ‘Are we in love with her?’

‘That’s neither here nor there, I am sick of being…’ Nicolas stopped talking and returned to fiddling with his hair and ears.

Demize floated around Nicolas’s head, glaring at him,

‘He can’t say it. He can’t say what we all know to be true. Nicolas is…’

Nicolas’s cane swatted Demize before he could complete his sentence. The head flew across the bed chamber, shattered against the bars at the window, fell to the floor, and then drew itself back together,

‘Haha! Missed!’

Nicolas ignored the head, and resumed part of the conversation,

‘What we need for the theatre is a great play written by our good selves, and of course we need the theatre itself. Perhaps we shall build it in the chapel. The chapel isn’t put to any good use anyway, and…’ Nicolas said as he swayed from side to side, ‘We need a flying serial killer with skills in the thespian arts.’

Webster nodded, a little intrigued,

‘Do you know where we can get one?’

‘I know of one. I will find out his whereabouts.’

‘And who will build the theatre?’ Demize asked.

Nicolas thought for a moment then began yelling,

‘Chives! Chives!’

‘His name,’ Webster interrupted, ‘Is Dimitri, as you full well know.’

‘His name is Chives.’ Nicolas snapped, ‘CHIIIIIVVVVEEES. Why don’t you take the cotton buds out of your four-eyed, bug ears and listen for once!’

The only reply forthcoming was a knock at the door.

‘Entaaarrr,’ Nicolas hummed.

Chives creaked the door open and slopped into the chamber,

‘You called, Sir?’

‘Yes, indeed I did. I have a few commissions that might interest you, well one commission broken into three parts.’ Chives was not interested, but Nicolas continued anyway, ‘We would like the chapel turned into a theatre, I am sure you and Archie can do that. Hire some builders from The Kingdom of Tepes, it will annoy Count Pompous and send Bink my way so he can work on the script. Oh, and I will speak to you again about catching a flying serial killer, but let’s not rush ahead of ourselves, we have much work to do.’

‘We, Sir?’

Nicolas turned and narrowed his eyes at Chives. Chives not acknowledging the Nicolai beyond table sittings was starting to cause annoyance. He was obliged to speak to the chef, Meatcleaver, as Nicolas told him that he would spend a century wearing his balls for earrings if he did not. He even tolerated the clusters sitting at meals, but otherwise he only really spoke to Chester.

Nicolas huffed,

‘Yes, we Chives, since there are three of us.’ Chives ignored the rotting head and the devious reflection, and changed the subject,

‘Is this for the future Mrs DeSilva?’

‘It most certainly is, Chives.’

‘Sir, have you ever come across the term consent?’ Chives asked, scratching his chin.

‘Of course I have, man, I’m not an imbecile. It is a nonsense word created by The Vigilante Milkmaids to castrate us. I will not be castrated, and nor will Webster. Demize is shit out of luck, but the rest of us stand firm on this matter, and I mean hard!’

‘Very good Sir, you clearly know what you are doing, given all of your previous successes.’

The cane was launched at Chives’s face before he could duck causing Demize to let out a cheer,

‘Bullseye! Your aim never fails to amuse, Nicolas.’

‘Another excellent idea, I should demonstrate my knife throwing skills on the Immoless.’

Demize frowned, and a pair of dark glasses appeared on his head and dropped to his nose,

‘Again, not what I said.’

‘She will be impressed by my prowess and drop to her knees…’

‘Nicolas, stop,’ Webster ordered softly, ‘we have one end goal, Plan BAT, and if you get over-excited, the plan will fail, like all of the other plans. You need to reel it in a bit.’

Nicolas’s lower lip jutted out, and he threw himself on his bed with his hands behind his head,

‘Any news on the second Immoless, Chives?’

‘Yes Sir, I thought I might release her into the hall of mirrors when the first Immoless leaves us and get Chester on the case when he returns from Neferaten.’

‘Good old Ches,’ Nicolas smiled, ‘The Pied Piper always catches the beaver. That man has got the most prolific flute you know?’

‘Yes, you have mentioned it, Sir.’

‘Ladies like a big flute, Chives.’

‘Indeed, Sir.’

Nicolas turned his attention from waving his metaphorical cock at Chives to eyeing Demize’s dark glasses, he raised his hand again and leapt from the bed, dancing. Chives changed the music to the sound of tributes being lashed, and Webster sent four bolts of electricity through the cells and dungeons and allowed the screams to echo through the two-way speaker he had devised for Nicolas’s bedside table.

‘Nicolas?’ Webster asked, interrupting his poor dance skills.

‘Yes?’

‘How exactly does a repulsive plaid suit trigger Plan BAT and attract the Immoless, it’s hardly peacock material?’

‘It’s better than that orange and green mess he was wearing,’ Demize hummed.

‘Firstly,’ Nicolas began, ‘the plaid suit is to show off my god-like physique, secondly the suit comes with a cunning disguise.’

He sauntered over to his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a small black box, then returned to the mirror opening the box as he moved.

Nicolas took out a pair of round-rimmed dark glasses and a fake moustache that looked a little bit like a French slug. He popped on the glasses, then clawed at a small tube of superglue in an attempt to get the lid off, his black leather gloves, however, inhibited the conquest.

After a while Nicolas opened his mouth and allowed his canines to extend into ghastly fangs. The fangs bit at the tube and glue squirted onto Nicolas’s tongue. Demize lit another cigar,

‘Fool!’

Nicolas wiped the glue from his tongue, and applied it to his top lip, then added the moustache.

‘Fangth in or fangth out?’ Nicolas asked.

‘For what?’ Webster queried.

‘To theduth the Immoleth.’

‘Oh! Definitely fangs out.’

‘Thath what I thought.’

Webster peered over his glasses,

‘Yes, that way the Immoless can see what an absolute weeble you really are.’

Nicolas’s expression dropped and the fangs retracted.

‘Look, Nicolai,’ Webster added, ‘even if you do succeed in seducing the Immoless, which I don’t have high hopes for, you still have the first two Immolesses living in the asylum. The Electi will not send a third until they know the first two matters have been resolved.’

Nicolas nodded,

‘Way ahead of you, no need to panic, these matters shall be resolved early today, and later I shall conquer the third. In fact, Robert should be on route to collect the first Immoless if I am not mistaken.’

Demize cackled,

‘He doesn’t know his own brother’s name. What a goober!’

Webster looked down,

‘Mmmm.’

‘Mmmm what?’ Nicolas asked as he removed the moustache along with a thick layer of skin from his upper lip.

‘I was on watch before you returned and the first Immoless was complaining about the cold.’

Nicolas shook his head,

‘We can’t have that, can we? The comfort of our guests is at the centre of Corax’s manifesto.’ He raised a finger and pointed to the slimy ceiling,

‘I know, I shall warm her up and prepare her for my beloved brother, Robert.’