Chapter 13

Mabel and Liza were in a jog now.

Booths leaned drunkenly on splintered legs, their striped awnings sagging like wet skin. A child’s laugh echoed—sometimes slowed, like a record played wrong. The prizes were still there: stuffed animals flayed and re-stitched, dolls with faces borrowed from real ones.

A ring toss game slammed with meaty thuds. The rings were not rings. They were loops of intestine—fresh, wet, and pulsing faintly as if still remembering their host. One flopped off the edge and hit the ground with a meat-wet smack. A carnie behind the stall let out a bark of laughter, teeth far too long for his mouth.

Next to it, a mallet strength test used a real spine for the shaft and a screaming head for the bell. It clanged when struck—because the mouth was still full of teeth.

Behind it all stomped the Strongman.

Both sides moved up the carnival row.

Both scheming.

Liza had a stake in her hand, waiting for the moment an idea came to mind.

Unfortunately, the Strongman got one first.

The colossal dumbbell stayed in his right hand. With the other, he scooped up debris—splintered wood, shattered bottles, even a flailing vampire carnie—and hurled it like a cannon blast.

Glass, limbs, and circus trash screamed through the air.

The sisters dove in opposite directions.

Liza slammed into cover behind a toppled snack cart.

Mabel rolled behind the husk of a rigged booth, shattered prizes spilling at her feet.

"Glacia!" Mabel shouted, firing Heartpiercer as a wave of ice spikes tore across the row. They hit the Strongman in a jagged spread—dotting his arm, shoulder, and side. His march slowed, but only slightly. Still coming.

Liza eyed the snack cart. Worked the angles.

She ashed her stake, punched into the frame, and ripped free a side panel—a plate of warped metal and lacquered wood. Her fingers dug into the trim, gripping until splinters bit back.

She now had a shield.

Liza rose with all the grim glory a panel from Mrs. Tattle's Traveling Tea & Treats could muster—still stamped in cursive with the slogan:

“For Delicate Mouths and Refined Moods.”

Liza returned to the aisle, facing down the oncoming titan. She walked backwards, shield raised, boots crunching over crushed glass and sawdust.

Mabel slipped in behind her, peeking over one shoulder. Another blast stake was loaded and ready.

“Lumina!” she shouted—

and the searing ball of light smashed into the Strongman’s face.

He flailed and roared, swinging blindly. The dumbbell tore through booths, carts, and carnies alike—ripping the midway to pieces.

Liza dropped to one knee and braced.

Mabel hugged tight behind her, blue aura seeping off her body.

Carnival debris and mangled bodies slammed into the makeshift shield—

most of it held.

But the cart panel screamed as chunks were torn away, wood splintering, metal warping.

Mrs. Tattle’s promise to delicate mouths did not survive the impact.

Liza whipped her ruined shield at the monster and reached for another stake.

She and Mabel bolted—racing down the line of twisted games toward the carousel. The Strongman roared behind them, hurling debris with wild force. Booth scraps, splintered signs, and the occasional body rocketed past.

They ducked low, weaving between crooked stalls and broken prize bins.

The larger pieces missed—crashing down around them like a collapsing stage—but smaller ones struck home. Shards tore through sleeves, scraped skin, ricocheted off helmets and collar plates.

Neither of them stopped running.

The sisters scrambled up the steps and onto the carousel’s splintered platform, boots hitting warped floorboards that creaked like old teeth. The calliope wheezed to life on its own—playing a tune that almost resembled a waltz before slipping sideways into discordant, shrieking notes.

The painted horses turned as they passed. Slowly.

Their faces were wrong.

Some had too many eyes.

Others had human mouths, full of rotten baby teeth.

One didn’t have a face at all—just a stretched sheet of skin, stitched where expression should’ve been.

The carousel spun faster.

Blood streaked the brass poles.

A child’s shoe dangled from one horse’s mouth, clenched between painted lips that now moved.

Another mount was less horse, more flayed deer, its head lolling on a broken neck, still twitching to the rhythm.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

As Mabel and Liza moved between them, the floor squelched once—just enough to suggest it was breathing.

The Strongman caught up—

and simply reached out a hand.

His massive palm slammed into the carousel’s edge—

and stopped it.

The platform shrieked to a halt, gears grinding, poles snapping in protest.

Liza flew forward, unable to stop.

She crashed into the calliope with a full-body clang, both girl and machine collapsing into a heap of limbs, brass tubing, and violent swearing.

Mabel wasn’t spared either. The jolt flung her toward a towering planter—

but one sharp “Ventus!” spun from her lips just in time. A burst of wind softened her impact, blasted the planter to dust, and sent her skidding safely beneath a rigged game stall.

The carousel groaned, half-spinning from the force.

Ash drifted like snowfall around Liza—soft, weightless.

She rose from the heap, scraped and bruised, eyes burning.

The calliope wheezed one last sour note—

then her fist came down, and the machine split like kindling.

She ripped into its guts with both hands. Brass tubing snapped. Gears spilled like organs. Her golden aura flared hot around her, casting long shadows through the drifting ash.

Then she found it.

A full backplate—nearly five feet tall, curved and reinforced, once bolted to the spine of the calliope like a cathedral bell shield. Painted cherubs grinned across the surface, their faces now warped by heat and blood.

Liza heaved it free.

It took both arms to swing it upright.

"Let Joy Ring Eternal," the engraving read, now half-obscured by soot.

Liza stood, towering slab in one hand, pilebunker in the other.

And she began her march, like a hateful knight fighting for her kingdom.

She stomped a straight line through the carousel.

Wood groaned underfoot.

The painted horses bent away from her path, joints creaking as if afraid to meet her gaze.

The Strongman roared—

grabbed two horses clean off their poles—

and hurled them like battering rams.

Liza braced for each one.

The first hit like a wrecking ball. The shield held.

The second shattered on impact—splinters and painted bone exploding across the floor.

She never broke stride and closed the distance.

The brute swung its dumbbell wide.

Liza had no room to retreat.

The strike shattered everything she had left.

Shield fragments and pilebunker shards blasted backward, tearing past her in a razor storm.

Steel, wood, and force—it took her with it, Liza flying straight into the same booth Mabel was thrown to.

Her aura flared, sealing the worst of it.

But the smaller cuts stayed—raking across her arms, cheeks, thighs. A dozen slashes. A dozen reminders.

“Slag and damnation, Mabel! Even the pilebunker’s gone!” Liza snapped, blood in her teeth.

She yanked her sister to her feet, no time for sympathy.

Mabel chided her as they stumbled toward the looming funhouse.

“Liza, that dumbbell is you and me combined. You really thought you could stop it?”

Between breaths, Liza wheezed back—

“I didn’t want to! I had—no where—to go!”

They scrambled through the warped entrance of the funhouse—

a jagged grin of a doorway, lined with shattered mirrors and peeling paint.

Behind them, the carousel still groaned, the Strongman’s footsteps pounding closer.

Then the girls vanished into the dark.

The floorboards creaked—then snapped.

The goliath stomped through the funhouse entrance, shoulders scraping against the warped frame.

Mirrors cracked at his reflection. Some shattered on sight.

He didn’t flinch.

The giant ducked under a broken arch, dragging the dumbbell behind him like a slaughtered beast. His breath came in wet huffs, steam rolling out with every exhale.

The colossus paused—

head tilting, just slightly—

as if listening for the heartbeat of prey inside the glass.

Darkness swallowed everything.

To a human, it would be black—nothing but cold air and the creak of warped wood.

But the vampire saw just enough.

Dim outlines. Faint shapes. The world in grayscale, smeared with motion blur.

And reflections.

Endless reflections.

Every panel showed him—dozens of him—some correct, others twisted:

arms too long, heads cocked the wrong way, one smiling when he wasn’t.

Some moved just slightly out of sync.

He stepped forward.

His own eyes followed him.

All of them.

Some blinked.

The brute’s breath echoed in the glass.

He turned—

but the mirrors turned with him.

Another step.

Another dozen versions of himself following.

One smirked.

One wept.

He reached out suddenly—shoved his hand into one panel. It wasn’t glass.

It gave like skin, then snapped back.

He growled. Kept walking.

The mirrors didn’t reflect anymore.

Now they led.

The brute turned again, slower this time.

The reflections still followed. All but one.

In the far corner of the funhouse, a single mirror showed Liza’s silhouette—back turned, arms raised in her signature stance.

Still. Waiting.

He growled.

Charged.

The panel cracked as he slammed through it—

but nothing waited beyond.

Just more glass. More dark.

His own face, now bleeding.

He stepped back, fists clenched.

Something was wrong.

The walls were closer now.

Mirrors shifted behind him.

Like trees rearranging themselves in a forest when no one’s looking.

He turned—

and every path was gone.

A perfect ring of mirrors now circled him. Eight panels, twelve feet wide. Some bent. Some clean. All full of him.

Some smiled.

Some didn’t.

He took one step forward.

They took one step closer.

“…Lumina,” a small voice whispered.

A loud bloop echoed through the funhouse—

then everything went white.

The Strongman screamed.

Glass detonated. Metal shrieked. The dumbbell swung blind, pulverizing everything it touched—shattering mirrors, collapsing beams, tearing the ring apart in pure panic.

Liza and Mabel were huddled behind one of the far mirrors.

It held—

but only barely.

Chunks chipped away with every impact. Shards of glass flew past their heads, slicing the air like thrown blades.

“Ventus!” Mabel shouted.

A spiral burst to life—sharp and screaming.

The wind caught the Strongman in full.

A whirlwind of razor debris spun around him, slicing deep and fast—like meat carved from a spit, a kebab shaved for the hungriest customer hell ever served.

“Gravitas!” Mabel roared.

A black streak cracked through the air—

then bloomed into a dense sphere of gravity, ripping the dumbbell from the Strongman’s grip. It dragged part of his arm with it, the warped metal vanishing into the singularity.

He screamed—ripping himself free.

What remained wasn’t a limb—just ruined muscle twitching over bone.

He clutched at his face with the good arm, stumbling.

Then—

a golden streak burst through one of the funhouse mirrors.

Liza.

She slammed down hard, hands finding the old stake still buried in his arm. She ripped it free—

and with one vicious strike, drove it into his chest.

Not deep enough.

Snarling, she sank a fist into his flesh—found something solid—

maybe a collarbone.

She held on.

And with her free hand, she punched.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The stake crept closer to his heart with each brutal hit.

His bloody fingers found her helmet.

And squeezed.

Fist pounding.

Fingers crushing.

One final slam.

The stake punched through.

He stiffened—

and Liza came tumbling down with him, crashing into ash and shattered glass in an ungraceful, blood-soaked heap.