Prologue: Curtain Call

No one could say when the Midnight Marquee first appeared. It was both more and less than what it appeared to be, as most things are, a secret that children already know but forget in the rush to adulthood. And adults (as we all know) are only concerned with minutiae and mundane matters.

The Midnight Marquee, home of terrors and delights, temple of oddities and endings, last bastion of dreams and nightmares, the secret repository of things wondrous and impossible. All the things that only children can cherish and adults can sometimes remember.

It moves from city to city, the Midnight Marquee, coming soon to a street corner near you.

The massive signs of the Marquee are a warning if you stare at them long enough. There is a secret in the way the letters curl, dancing seductively in patterns that seem ordinary at first glance, but most people who gaze long enough find themselves fascinated, almost hypnotized by exquisite dread. Very much like the feeling you get watching a car crash with your wife of fifteen years and your daughter of eight, their heads blossoming in a fountain of blood.

Standing alone by the entrance, the Master of the Marquee watched the woman as she wandered down the street. A casual observer would have thought she was drunk. But he knew better. With every step she took, Katerin Simms, 34 year-old unwed mother of two was losing her mind. Her memory was being devoured by a cancer that festered inside her, and as she stumbled and fell for the fifth and final time, her final thought was of the color white, and how much she loved the smell of vanilla.

She lay on the cold pavement for a few moments before fading away, like a memory of a dream that evaporates upon waking. In her place, the Rumple Man stepped into the world.

“So it begins.” The Rumple Man lifted a white-gloved hand to straighten his fedora. A smile played on thin bloodless lips and his eyes glowed with the color of malice.

“Or it ends.” The Master of the Marquee stood a full head shorter than the Rumple Man but still he looked his adversary straight in the eyes without flinching. His blood red tunic was muted in the darkness, like the embers of a fire going out.

They fought an invisible war on many levels, in a myriad of forms. From a defiant snowflake melting under the first rays of spring, to the alcoholic staring at a bottle of whiskey, yin versus yang, across many worlds, times and places twisting in the infinite cosmic string of consciousness, stretching end over end from one void to the next.

“Why do you even bother?” The Rumple Man tilted his head to one side, his smile growing impossibly large to cover his face.

“Because it is what I do, if it means you have one less victim, one less orphan to play with, then it is worth my time.”

“Your altruism is touching but misplaced. No matter what you do, the war will turn my way as always.”

“So you say, but then again evil has always been prone to delusion.”

“Good? Evil? Such trite concepts.” The Rumple Man turned towards the street. Lamplight played around him but shadows curled where he stood. “It is beauty that moves me, the beauty of a viper in a field of flowers.”

The Marquee began to light up, bulbs sprang to electric life as the Master of the Marquee walked quietly to the entrance.

The Rumple Man turned towards the street. “I take my leave. Gather yours and I will have mine. Our game’s afoot.”

“I’ll be waiting.” The Master of the Marquee took out a roll of tickets from his pocket. One of these could be the key to victory. But which one? There was no way of knowing, only chance would decide if he would find the right one. And chance had never been his friend.

The curtain rises.