"Now you're probably sittin' there, thinkin' the only real-life fairies are poofters. Or whatever it is they prefer to be called these days. You'll have to forgive me, I'm over three-hundred years old. Collectin' is my hobby, social conventions are not. If you're offended by this, my sincerest apologies. Maybe you can take some solace inna fact that anyone other than children acknowledge your existence.
Where were we? Right. Fairies. Not all of them are spritely li'l young things with sparkles and turnt-up noses. Or grandmotherly crones either. Sure, some of them are. You got your wood and water nymphs, your fairy godmothers, so on and so on. Then, you got your tooth-fairies. Thing is, it ain't like they show onna cartoons, loads of us are blokes. It's just a job after all. Now most fairies are good souls, here to help regular folk out. And then, some of us are mean old cunts with the capability to take what we want. It helps to have these capabilities when you're a collector. I'm the latter, and my name is Harold."
"Three-hundred years is a long time, but tooth-fairies are not eternal. I can't say I was all that surprised when Death arranged a meeting at the local rubba."
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The English rain fell steadily on the thick-paned Palladian windows of the Boar's Cross public house. Three strangers sat at the bar, keeping the appearance of loneliness at bay. A fat, grumpy barkeep flipped the TV stations back and forth between football matches, muttering curses with each channel change. The dour environment of the dive was offset by the energetic music coming from the jukebox. The entire scene would have been completely unremarkable, save for the fact that the tall, thin man at the bar was Spring-heeled Jack, the squat man sitting at an oak table in the back was a tooth-fairy, and across from him sat Death. The other two sods were normal, but too old and never sober enough to care.
Death did not come in a shroud, but a sleek little black cocktail dress. The skeletal frame one might envision the harbinger to be, was actually a chestnut haired beauty with a disarming presence. She tapped a perfectly manicured finger on the table, waiting for Harold to finish his turn. He pushed the shiny miniature boot forward three spaces.
"Boardwalk again, Harold. And now there are one, two, three hotels on it," she smiled.
"Bollocks! That's the last o' me quid, exactly. You cheated!" Harold exclaimed.
"I assure you I did not"
"We finished a game in less than two hours! Of course you cheated!"
"That doesn't prove I cheated."
"Well, it's fuckin' Monopoly, innit? Nobody wins in less than five hours without cheatin'!"
"You could have chosen billiards. Or darts."
"Every chav in Bows picks billiards or darts", Harold replied. "I had to give myself a chance. Lessee if they have Othello. Less pieces, I can keep track of your strayin' hands better."
"You don't just get to choose another game, Harold. It's time. Take my hand."
She reached forward with pale arms that could have been sculpted by Bernini himself. For more than a second, Harold thought about reaching back to her.
He clasped his hands together tightly. "'How's about a deal then?" Harold asked, his Cockney accent clipping the words.
"A duel? Surely you must be joking."
"Not a duel. I don't feel like swimmin' in me own claret tonight. A deal, as in a bargain."
"I'm not Lucifer, I've no interest in your soul" she said, tiredly.
"Nah luv, not me soul. See, I've a cunning li'l steamer to collect somethin' offa someone you would be veeeeery interested in..."
"What are you playing at, imp?"
"Lookit, if you were a collector, what would be the most distinguishing tooth you could possess? Or should I say... fang?"
"NO!" Her large, goldenrod eyes grew even bigger. "You're talking about The Impaler!"
"Aye, ol' Vlad Dracul himself. He cheated you, and you want him. Many have tried to give him to ya, but I'm the one what's gonna deliver. I get his fangs, you get the bastard himself."
"And what would you want for this... deal?" A provocative smile played at the corners of her lips.
"A hundred years", Harold replied, a tad overeager.
She scoffed and countered, "Fifty years."
"Fifty and a favour. I need to get in touch with The Morrigan."
"You have one week", Death conceded, then abruptly got up and left.
YOU ARE READING
Cutting 32
HorrorLife's hard being a male tooth fairy. And for Harold, it gets a lot harder when Death herself comes to tell him time's up. The silver-tongued sylph manages to cut a deal for more years, at the cost of playing a dangerous game. But with the help of a...
