Verity circulated through the all-female crowd at the charity event, pausing among groups to scout out inspiration and potential volunteers (and non-volunteers). She also performed some small magics to entertain those groups. Between groups she was spoken to by a young woman who introduced herself as Briony. “I loved what you did with the sisters in the angel and devil outfits; it was daring and made their outfits so much more interesting. Any chance that you can do something with me to make me look brave or daring and maybe make this costume more interesting too?”

The magician stepped back and cast an appraising eye over the costume and the woman wearing it. She was a little plump and that meant that the opaque black body-stocking she was wearing distorted the shapes of the skeleton that was printed on it. She recalled meeting another woman also costumed as a skeleton, who was unlikely to be up for volunteering and formed a plan. “I think I have an idea. Meet at the dance floor in four minutes, I have to auction of a year's subscription to cleaning service that will send a handsome man to clean your place topless. Then I'll see what I can do for you.”

Verity rushed to the backstage area to organise what she planned.

After the fierce bidding for a year of services by a topless male cleaner and a quick mention that the donor was to be found giving out business cards and brochures in the back room beyond the gambling tables, Verity moved on to her next piece of magic.

“For my next magical challenge, ideally, I need someone costumed as a ghost or a mummy, but as I see no-one like that, I guess somebody in a skeleton costume would do. How about you?” This question was directed at the probable non-volunteer she had spotted earlier. She looked shocked to be invited to participate in the magic.

“I don't think so! What about her?” The woman pointed at Briony.

“The rules were clearly set out at the beginning of the evening; if you don't wish to participate in the magic, you have the option of making a donation to get me to choose somebody else.”

“Ok. Is one hundred going to be enough?”

“We'll see.” Verity went over to where to Briony. “Do you think that a hundred is enough?” Out of the woman's sight she made a hand gesture that indicated that Briony could suggest that the 'tap-out donation' should be higher.

“I don't know,” said Briony, feigning uncertainty. The members of the crowd around her, who also saw the gesture, expressed similar doubts.

As a result of this prompting, the non-volunteer upped her bid for non-participation to 150, which, it was quickly agreed, was enough.

“So, are you willing to be part of the magic; or are we going to pay another round of 'Donate or Participate'?”

Without words Briony's response was obvious. She ducked under the red velvet rope that formed the perimeter of the performance area.

“Now that I have a volunteer, I shall reveal what I have planned for this item. It's not really an act of magic, but more like an act of concentration, bravery and commitment. We're going to do a bit of fire-walking, except of course there will be not be a bed of burning coals, because a ten metre long pit of burning coals a metre wide is difficult to transport and equally impossible to setup at short notice.”

Briony looked shocked at this revelation; she knew she had asked to appear brave or daring, but had not bargained on something quite as extreme. Verity was pleased by the mixed reaction from the audience; the hubbub would draw more people to watch. The non-volunteer's expression suggested that she was feeling that her donation was great value-for-money.

“So, how are we going to do a fire-walk without fire?”

“That's easier demonstrated than explained. If you'd follow me to where the kit is stowed, I can get you to layout a couple of things while I set out the rest. Ok?”

Verity did not wait for Briony's nod before heading for a rear corner of the dance floor, next to the small stage where live bands occasionally played. Briony was handed a cloth covered hoop and told to lay it down on the floor to the side of the central line where the fire-walk would be laid out, then return for a second item. After a bit of dithering, Briony set down the ring on the side closer to the bar, where the crowd was a little thicker.

When Briony returned to the entrance to the backstage area, she found a paddling pool on wheels and a pull handle. Behind the pool waited the magician ready to pull the stack of things behind her. The volunteer took hold of the handle and dragged the pool onto the dance floor and, under additional instructions from Verity, dragged it slowly to the forward centre of the performance area. The pool proved heavier that she initially anticipated, because it was about a third full of water, which added the additional problem of moving it smoothly enough to not cause it to splash.

With the water-filled pool in place, Verity parked the stack of plates she had been towing a couple of steps away and took a handle on the pile and headed back towards the stage. The result of this action was the panels slid off the pile and formed a metre wide black path about ten metres long towards the pool. With the panels laid out, Verity plugged them into a socket in the front of the stage.

“That's the fire-walk set up. While that heats up to it proper temperature of five hundred Celsius (nearly a thousand Fahrenheit), we'll have time to prepare Briony for her fire-walking challenge.” The magician took her volunteer by the hand and moved her to the vicinity of the hoop.

“First I need you to remove your shoes; it's hardly a challenge if you walk across red hot metal plates with your shoes on. There is also the fact the it would probably singe the soles quite badly and you don't want to be stepping into the cooling pool with them on.”

Briony pulled her shoes from her feet and set them aside.

“I had hoped that your feet were bare under there, because the heat of the walk will melt the fabric of your costume. So, if you could pop it off, that would be great.”

The look of horror on Briony's face was clear and told the audience that while doing a fire-walk was more than she really wanted to do, doing it naked was too much of an ask.

“It's ok. We'll use the costume changing ring. Just step into the circle and you can change into one of the backup costumes I have, without being seen.” Still holding Briony's hand the magician guided her to step into the ring. The audience heard a jingle and a few clicks, while Briony's face took on an expression of shock. Verity rotated her volunteer to allow the audience to see what had caused this reaction. Briony's wrists were connected by a pair of handcuffs.

“How am I meant to change out of this costume and into another if I don't have my hands free?”

“You aren't. The process would take too long.”

“And handcuffing me will make it quicker?”

“Yes, because I'll be helping along with a bit of magic and they'll be more impressed if they know you aren't a trained assistant with unrevealed quick-change skills.”

“But, I'm not.” Briony protested.

“I know that, but they don't,” said Verity with a calming edge to her voice.

“Ok, what happens now?”

“I lift the ring so that the cloth hides your body for a while, and then your skeleton costume will be gone. After that I provide you with what you need to make your chosen costume.”

“But, I haven't chosen a costume.”

“That's ok. We'll sort that out once you are out of your current costume.” the magician squatted to pick up the hoop and drew the concealing fabric up Briony's body, stopping at her chin, thus hiding all of the body-stocking which went up to Briony's neck. There was brief moment during which the volunteer looked puzzled, then she looked down and looked shocked. The shock coincided with something black being tossed from inside the tube of cloth.

“Follow me!” instructed the magician. She walked towards the crumbled black object, forcing Briony to move to stay within the hoop, or risk being left in the open naked. Verity adjusted the hoop and rested the far side on her volunteers shoulder. While the magician kicked the object into the air, caught it and shook it out with her free hand, she held the nearside of the ring high enough to not expose Briony, but low enough that it was obvious that she was no longer wearing the body stocking and her hands were still trapped behind her back. The shaken-out object proved to be an opaque black body stocking with a skeleton printed on it.

“Now that you're ready to receive a new costume, which one would you like? Ghost or mummy?” While she asked, the magician tucked the body-stocking into her jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief and a small roll of crepe bandage; she shook the hanky when she mentioned 'ghost' and tossed the bandages in the air at the mention of 'mummy'.

The audience could tell that Briony was calculating which of these options would maximise her currently minimised modesty. Her consideration of the 'ghost' option noted that the scrap of cloth was barely enough to cover her groin, even if it could be held in place; and even if it expanded to cover her, she would feel vulnerable under a sheet for the rest of the evening and possibly have her vision limited if she ended up under a sheet with eye-holes. The roll of bandage seemed like a better choice, because she could see a way to fashion it into a bikini, if she was not hampered by being handcuffed. “I go for being a mummy, please.”

“Ok,” said Verity, “Mummy it is.” She tucked the handkerchief back into the breast pocket of her jacket, then tossed the roll of bandage into the tube of cloth surrounding her embarrassed volunteer. “Think about what you'd like to look like as a mummy in three, two, one.” The magician raised the hoop above Briony's head. Moments later, she lowered it again in response to a squawk of protest.

Standing inside the ring was a form in dirty wrappings. The form wriggled slightly and mumbled incomprehensibly, because every inch of Briony's body had been tightly covered with linen bandages strapping her legs together and her arms to her sides. The only exposed flesh was her hands and wrists which poked out of the back of the encasement with the short chain between the wrist shackles woven into the mess of fabric strips.

The magician took out a pair of scissors, which made quick, but delicate work of cutting away a section of bandage to reveal Briony's face. “Maybe you should have been thinking of a movie monster mummy rather than a real one,” commented the magician. “Do you want to try again? Or change your mind to ghost.”

“I'll give it another go, because while being like this means I can't be made to do the fire walk; it also means that I can't get to the bar either and I have a feeling I'll need a couple of stiff ones afterwards.”

Verity raised the hoop and the concealing cloth that hung from it. What showed when she dropped it again was Briony in a more conventional mummy costume. The most noticeable parts of her that not covered with bandage wrappings were her face and her feet. When Verity got her to turn round to give the audience a better view of her new acquired outfit, they saw her hands were mostly free of bandage, but the cloth strips, that appeared to be the entire costume, wrapped over the cuffs, but the chain was still visible between her wrists. As Briony moved about, from the joy of not being trussed like an ancient mummy and to display the costume, several ends of bandages untucked and dangled; the spaces where they had been tucked in showed Briony's skin. While there was nothing about the costume that its wearer could consider immodest, it was clear to the onlookers that it consisted entirely of the bandages with no underpinning of underwear.

As the applause and gasps that had accompanied the several costume changes faded. Verity took her mummified volunteer towards the stage end of the line of metal plates. On the way she shed her low heels to walk beside Briony with bare feet; a few people thought that they remembered her having stockings under her knee-length skirt and wondered when during the preceding action they had disappeared.

“Why are you taking off your shoes?” Briony asked.

“That's because I'm coming with you. I've always wanted to do this myself and what better chance to do that than now; besides what better way to keep you moving forward so you don't hurt yourself by stepping off the hot plates before the end, where there isn't any cooling water to soothe your feet.”

“Aren't you going to release these handcuffs?”

“No, for two reasons. First, the bandages cover the key holes on the cuffs and it would just take too long and bore this lovely audience. And second, what better way of keep the control that is needed to make sure that you make it to the end and don't stop, veer off to the side or try to move faster than the ideal pace to get to the end sooner; all of which are going to get you hurt. By the way, the ideal pace is as if you are marching to Colonel Bogey. Just start marching on the spot; when I give you a push keep marching straight forward until you reach the pool at the other end; I'll be with you the whole way. Clear?”

The audience did not hear most of this, but they could see that Verity was giving Briony some last minute coaching, through the heat haze that was being generated by the line of hot-plates, which were glowing slightly.

Briony nodded her understanding of the instructions she had been given. Verity began humming the military march and marching on the spot. After a couple of phrases the bandage-clad volunteer had joined her and synchronised herself with the magician, through the patting of her feet on the floor and the slight up-and-down imparted by the magician's hand on the chain of her handcuffs.

“Three, two, one, go!” Verity said, giving the command some extra impetus by applying some pressure to the base of Briony's back. Verity resumed humming the tune.

Briony stepped forward onto the glowing steel in front of her only to be followed a pace later by the magician.

For Briony the first half of the trek across went smoothly; the plates were hot, but her feet did not remain in contact with the metal for long enough for the heat to be painful. For the audience, the first few steps were unexciting, except for the vicarious thrill of watching a fire walk, then things took an unexpected turn. A couple of the loose strips of bandage touched the metal of the fire-walk and were quickly in flames. These flames quickly consumed the loose bandage and transferred to rest of Briony's bandage-swathed body.

At the halfway mark Briony began to notice that she was feeling heat from places other than her feet. “I think I'm on fire.” she whispered to the magician.

“Keep going!” commanded Verity. “The nearest and quickest way to douse the flames is that pool ahead of us.”

At this point Briony felt like making a run for the water that could extinguish her costume, but a tug on the chain of her handcuffs reminded her that she was not a free agent at the moment; it also gave her the second she needed to realise that while she was feeling a lot of all over heat, she was not feeling any pain.

The audience gasped as the human-fireball followed closely followed by the magician continued to walk at a steady medium pace along path of metal hot-plates. They soon stepped off the hot metal and traversed the two steps to stand in the pool of cooling water. As Briony stepped over the low wall of paddling pool there was a gout of steam. When the steam cleared Verity was standing alone in the water with a pair of handcuffs hanging from her hand.

Verity looked round to find her volunteer. “It's probably just as well Briony seems to have vanished, because, I'm not sure I know where the keys to these cuffs are.” Some of those at the front could see that the previously clear bottom of the pond was now scattered with bones; word quickly filtered back through the crowd. Verity looked down noticing that her feet were not alone in the water. She leaned down and picked up a thigh bone and used it to stir the rest of the bones, before dropping it back into the water.

“Who reckons that we should bring Briony back?” the magician asked. The response was universal that Briony should not be left as a pile of bones in a paddling pool. “Let's put it another way. Who here is willing to donate to see me bring Briony back, now?”

There followed a round of promises of extra donations, if Briony was returned while they watched, the largest of which came from the non-volunteer, who now seemed doubly grateful to not be a stack of wet bones.

“Ok,” said Verity, appearing to look around for inspiration of how the volunteer's return might be achieved. Her eyes spotted the hoop with the cloth.

The magician stepped out of the pool, and produced a towel to dry her bare feet, before padding over to where the costume changing ring lay. She picked it up and tossed it so that it landed in the pool. Back at the pool she lifted the ring and then dropped it.

In the pool stood Briony's skeleton; they could tell that it was Briony, because her face was on the front of her head with the transition to a bony cranium covered by a few remaining tatters of bandage.

It took Briony a few moments to discover that she had been converted from having a skeleton costume to being a real skeleton. Once the initial look of shock cleared, she realised that she had got what she had asked for; an improvement of costume with something that made her look brave and daring.

As the skeletal Briony, stepped from the water-filled paddling pool, Verity handed her the towel, saying, “you'll want to dry you feet before put your shoes back on.”