Demon Stories

Beau: Beautiful Stranger, 1818, England

Beau

Beautiful Stranger

1818, England

I stumbled into our rented rooms feeling very light headed. I needed something. When I smelled a beautiful smell. 

The smell fills your nostrils, then your nose, and then your head. It takes the light headed feeling and lifts you off your feet, as if your ears have sprouted wings and you're now hovering a few feet off of the floor. 

I knew exactly what it was. Lady death had entered our rented rooms. 

I tip-toed through the rooms, one by one, checking with the nose of a dog. Weaker here, stronger there, dragged here, dragged there. It was a game. Violette had made a game for me. I followed the trail with closed eyes and a light smile on my face, my hands up in surrendered fists, opening my lungs to smell the sweet smell. 

I began to hum, feeling the vibration in my euphoric nose. I hummed to the beat of my tip-toes. I began to speak in my native tongue, sweetly encouraging the cute smell to materialize before my eyes in full expression. 

I tip-toed through the dressing room, through the first bedroom, through the common room. And here, in the second bedroom, the smell hit me like a knock to the face. 

Mingled with sugary floral perfume, the smell swirled around the bed as a honeyed sweet blissful invitation to a party of lust.  I could almost see a small figure impressed in the smell, illuminated in the strong center of it. 

I opened my eyes in a rush, and dove onto the bed, but immediately jumped back up and stared. My face dropped as my heart jumped into my throat. 

Laying on the bed with loose gingery auburn curled hair, face semi-powdered white, with ruby red lip color, lightly dusted black smokey eyes, and a fake beauty mark on the cheek, was a beautiful man dressed in a long, empire-waisted high class olive green dress. 

On his neck was a small calligraphied note. I took the heavy papered card in both hands and read it, my breath held. 

"My dear Beau," the card read, "I saw this woman on stage in the theater tonight. Isn't she just deliciously lovely? You should have heard her voice. Just divinely given, like the gods gave her a little sparrow in her throat. Now you may have her throat, all to yourself. -Violette"

I let the card flutter to the floor like a little, awful butterfly. 

Memories of tonight flooded back into my aching head. With every moment my head got lighter and dizzier, the once intoxicating smell making me sick to my stomach. 

I had picked up a gentleman at a party the night before. We had infiltrated it as per orders from Diana, who was nowhere to be seen that night. The way he stared at me sent my heart to flying. It was such a high feeling. This powerful man obsessed with me. He had arranged for us to go to the opera the next night, all alone, so we could "get to know eachother". 

Things were going perfectly. That is, until the opera started and he came onto stage. 

My man was talking, talking, talking. All about business or some thing. But all I could do was stare, wide-eyed, at this doe-eyed boy on the stage singing his beautiful heart out. A song about unrequited love. How he clutched his heart and downcast his eyes, as if his own heart, and not his character's, were breaking. Shattering into a million pieces right on the floor of the stage before our very eyes. My eyes drunk him in, all about him, from his long dark ginger hair which I immediately recognized was not a wig, to the gentle sloping of his body which was bound tightly in underdress, causing it to have a womanly shape. I was impressed and amazed, no, mesmerized by his natural elegant grace and feel for such emotion and expression. It touched my very heart and soul, for to my sad heart it sounded like a song between just the two of us, both of us female in spirit and of one kind. I felt so happy for him at the same time, for as a singer in this company, he had finally been able to spread his wings and be who he was in a world where it was not accepted. A private song which we two could only understand, for with my role as a dark hunter of the night, not bound by society, I could be who I am meant to be as well. 

"Are you listening, my sweet child?" my man asked. I didn't choose to hear him.

Now here he was. Spread out like Jesus on the cross on my bed. I didn't want to see this horrible tragedy on my bed, but my grieving eyes peered over the edge and stared at his small, delicate form. He was as slender as a bird, skin milky white and very fine. My eyes welled up and a sob escaped my throat. I fell into tears on the side of the bed, my head in my hands. I had found a spirit like mine in this awful world. And now it was gone, and I was all alone again. 

That was when I heard it. A tiny thump sound. My eyes snapped open and my ears seemed to expand. There it was again. A thump sound. Then I knew what it was. 

I carefully climbed onto the bed, my blood-teared eyes full of hope and dear caring. I pressed my head to his chest tenderly and full of love. 

It was his heart. Fluttering, but still there. 

He was alive. 

I knew immediately what must be done. I didn't give it a second thought. I didn't care if someone would kill me for it. 

I opened his lovely red mouth and let my blood tears drip onto his sweet pink tongue. Then I gathered him up lovingly, the folds of his dress soothingly cool against my bare arms. He was surprisingly light, even though I knew how small he was. The blood was working. He was becoming as light as air. I quickly carried him out of the guest house and down the street, then broke into a giddy run and ran and ran. 

I followed the night's trail of his floral perfume. I set him down at a house on a side street where it was the strongest, in front of the doorstep. 

I stared down at him, smiling to myself. A new life. A new Beau-given life. He would not die. Not ever. I would never be truly alone again. 

Then I turned on my happy heel and set off to find the kind gentleman who was so unlucky as to have met my acquaintance and taken me to the opera.