shorts {a collection of stories}

{ topic: 'carnivals' }

Screams neared them at tremendous speed, then whooshed up and off into the darkness to their right. The rush of air from the ride's passing ruffled the girl's hair.

"I just don't see what's so great about them, to be honest," she was saying, glancing around.

Noel took it in stride. Not everyone loved carnivals, especially when the carnies looked like they'd murder you for five bucks, the rides were overpriced, and the whole midway smelled of burnt cheese. But all Noel had to do was look up, at the bright, twinkling lights of the fairway, the spinning and humming and dinging of the insular world around them, and he felt happy. Cocooned.

Safe.

It was usually social suicide to tell anyone, though. He'd learned that over the years. So, since he'd be interested in going further with the girl on his arm, he only said, "They're not for everybody. Want a funnel cake?"

It worked. She giggled. "Trying to fatten me up?" she teased, pulling closer in to his body.

Noel breathed in deep. The smells of the carnival were a layer beneath the light fragrance of her perfume, buoying it up in his senses like a waiter with a tray of delicacies. When she pulled a steaming strip off the funnel cake, laughing, and dangled it into her mouth, Noel watched the worlds collide, sugared pastry and soft lips. He grinned at her rakishly, just so she'd blush, because that's what this was about.

Some tapped him on the shoulder, hard.

He whirled around. There was no one there.

A tap came on his other shoulder.

When he turned around the other way, there was someone there.

"Noel Remington?" asked the girl. Her dark eyes were framed by full lashes, her dark hair wild and unruly but without a single tangle that Noel could see. Her hands were on her curvaceous hips, and he could tell by the way he could see his date staring at him out of the corner of his eye that he was staring too long at the newcomer, but look at her. Practically poured into torn jeans, and an old Zeppelin tee.

Noel steeled himself to look at her eyes, rather than her tits. "That's me."

"We need to talk with you in the big tent, come on," she said impatiently.

"Wha--" was as far as he got before his date exploded.

"Who even are you?" she demanded. "What do you mean, we? Who needs to talk with him right this second? It's after nine o'clock! This isn't business hours."

Noel stood, and she petered out, uncertain. "Noel?"

He smiled down at her with real warmth, because he really didn't mind her, and he'd like a chance to try this again sometime. "I'm sorry, Dariana," he said. Her eyes widened. See? I do remember your name. "I've got to take care of this."

Then he left her there at the picnic table with their half-eaten funnel cake, and followed the dark-haired girl.

When they'd put enough tents between them and the jilted Dariana, Noel swung an arm up around his companion's shoulders. She stiffened.

"Aw, Cherise, don't be like that," Noel said, removing his arm.

"My name is Cherisement," she snapped, snarling the French pronunciation, storming around the side of another tent. "You've got some nerve, Noel. Putting on a younger face and... seducing some child."

"She's not a child! She said she was twenty-two." He bit his lip. "I'm sorry. You said you didn't want to wander the grounds anymore, I was. I was trying to be supportive."

"By beguiling a ch-- some floozy?" Her voice didn't go higher like most women when she was mad, it went lower, into some kind of hellcat purr. Noel loved that about her. He really did.

It was one of many, many reasons he didn't care to exist without her by his side. He knew it'd been wrong of him to seek pleasures of the flesh with someone else, and although Cherise would forgive him (for she'd done the same; they both had, more than twice) Noel knew he'd need to make it up to her.

They rounded another tent and came into view of the largest one on the grounds. Noel was proud of it, all saffron and sage and crimson. It didn't make much sense to modern carnivalgoers, but that was the way it used to be done. He ran his hand along one flap as they entered, his fingers catching on the skilled stitching that held the canvas together. His grandmother had sewn this tent.

Inside, it was a jumble of activity. This one was no longer used as the big top, so it had become some kind of office, storage area, and general green room for Noel's trusted inner circle. The carnies outside came with the rides, modern contrivances they'd been forced to rent when animals and acts were no longer enough. None of them entered here.

Everyone looked worried, their movements jerky and tense. It all ground to a halt when they saw Noel.

A man who had to be seven feet tall but only a hundred pounds soaking wet stepped up to him. "We've got a problem, sir."

"I keep telling you, Grant," Noel said, "call me by my name."

"Yessir, Noel, sir," Grant said. His face was scrunched in a worried grimace. "We've still got a problem."

"What is it?"

"There's a train coming in to town," said another voice in the room, belonging to a mustachioed strong man called Torreado. "Unscheduled."

"Do you think--"

"We know it's Hopper, Noel," Cherie told him. "The monkeys got his manifesto. He's heading straight for us." Her breath wafted across the thin skin of Noel's ear, and he was suddenly, obtrusively aware that he'd planned on getting laid this evening.

He shook it off. They had bigger issues at hand. "Find Handibound and Lucius, I need fireworks and a spyglass." If once more, the crooked entrepreneur Francis Hopper wanted to try and steal everything they'd worked so hard for all these centuries, then he'd find himself up against a small but very determined army.

"This is it," Cherise said, low.

Noel turned to her, and kissed her on the side of her mouth. His lips tingled where they touched her skin. "Then we'd better make it count."