Content warning: this story is based on the fantasy that stage magicians with real powers are - without most of the audience realising - actually sawing and slicing their assistants and volunteers into pieces for real, but with the aid of magic that prevents them suffering any lasting harm and which transforms their experience into one they can even enjoy. And of course they’re all restored at the end (eventually, anyway!)


Mistress Finella scanned the crowd, wondering which of them would be her next victim - sorry, ‘volunteer’. The atmosphere was surprisingly laid back for a works party, without any visible posturing, fakery or sucking up that she could see. But then all the staff she’d met over her years dealing with Jensen’s Stage Supplies had been very pleasant, straight-forward people. Everything she’d heard about it being a great place to work seemed true, if this lot were any indication. Then again, the free bar was probably helping too.

So far she’d performed magic on two of the partygoers, doing minor transformations to their costumes make them better fit the Halloween theme of tonight’s party. Now she reckoned it was time for something more spectacular. And the great thing was that she didn’t need to worry about freaking anyone out. The staff at Jensen’s Stage Supplies knew that some magic was real, and that she was one of its practitioners. The firm, and its employees, were OK with that. More than OK, as props for ‘real magic’ shows formed a decent percentage of their turnover.

Her musing was interrupted by a cough from a woman in a gold sparkly dress.

Finella smiled. “Hello! What can I do for you?” she asked. “Or to you?” she added, thinking this woman might just be game. As she spoke, she surreptitiously looked the woman up and down. She looked to be in her mid-thirties and was several inches taller than Finella Her figure could best be described as busty, though she hid it somewhat with a long shawl she’d draped over her dress. Her elegant neck was topped with a face sporting a well-defined jaw and high cheekbones, and she wore her hair in a short, black pixie cut.

The woman stepped a little closer, as if not wanting to be overheard. “Well, I couldn’t decide on a costume for tonight,” she began. “Everything in the shops seemed too... too slutty.” She paused. “I don’t like people staring at my body - my boobs, especially - so if you could do something fitting that directed attention elsewhere that would be great.”

“I think I could manage that,” Finella replied. “Just put your drink down on that table and stand between the two poles.” She pointed to a pair of upright metal poles, about six feet high and four feet apart.

The tall woman complied.

“Now kneel down, and put your arms out to your sides.”

Again, the woman did as she was told, though slightly more hesitantly. Finella divined the nature of the woman’s concern, and reached down to pull her shawl closed, making sure that no-one would be able to see down her cleavage.

“Thanks,” the woman whispered.

“What’s your name, by the way?” Finella asked. As she talked, she produced two sets of leather cuffs from a box and started tying the raven-haired woman’s wrists to the poles. “And what do you do at Jensen’s?”

“Oh, my name’s Dawn,” she replied conversationally, seemingly unphased by being restrained. “I’m the CIO - the head of IT. Though that’s not nearly as grand as it sounds. I’ve only got one technician under me so I have to be really hands-on and do a lot of it myself.”

As Dawn talked, Mistress Finella did up the second cuff and tugged it tight. “There,” the magician said. “These will make sure you stay hands-off, for this particular job at least!”

Dawn gave a slight laugh at that, and tugged at the cuffs, testing them. They were solid.

By now a small crowd had gathered. With the shawl covering her chest completely Dawn didn’t seem worried by the attention, or so Finella thought, but she didn’t plan on giving the woman any more time to think about it. She reached for a pumpkin lantern that was sitting on a pedestal off to her right and deftly snuffed out and removed the candle inside it, before whipping a knife from her belt and sawing a circular hole about five inches in diameter in the base. That done, she lowered it down until its base touched the top of Dawn’s head.

“Are you ready?” Finella asked the IT woman.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Dawn replied.

“OK. Then just brace yourself and keep your neck straight and your head still while I do...” Finella paused to give the woman a chance to brace herself, then pushed the pumpkin down, hard. “This!”

For a second or two, nothing happened. Then in the blink of an eye the pumpkin dropped a good foot or more, right down over Dawn’s head despite the hole in the base being much too small. It came to a sudden halt with the hole tight around Dawn’s neck.

The audience gasped. Finella rapped on the side to make Dawn start, and pointed out to the onlookers how they could see Dawn’s eyes through the crudely-cut eye holes. Dawn’s mouth, too, was visible, through the fierce jagged pumpkin grin. Quinn made sure to show how there was not the slightest sign of splitting or stretching around the hole in the bottom of the pumpkin, leaving it a total mystery how it had fitted over the IT woman’s head.

But that was only the beginning.

“For the next stage,” Finella said, “I need to make sure the pumpkin is firmly fixed to Dawn’s neck and can’t move. That will be easy enough to do, making use of these.” She paused and produced a set of steel skewers, more like knitting needles in size, from a drawer under the table, making sure not to let them into Dawn’s field of view. It was much better when things like this came without warning, she knew from experience. The volunteer’s reactions were always much more natural and convincing.

She rapped the first skewer on the table to prove it was solid, then without further ado she lined it up with a pre-drilled hole half an inch above the base of the pumpkin and pushed it in hard.

Dawn gave a startled gurgle and shook. Finella grasped the pumpkin harder and shoved again. Another gurgle, and then the tip of the steel spike burst out the other side of the pumpkin, having run Dawn right through the neck!

Finella stepped back to let the audience see better. Dawn was sagging slightly, her chest rising and falling below the shawl, the sound of laboured breathing coming from within the pumpkin combined with a wet sort of rattle. Slowly, a trickle of blood dribbled down Dawn’s neck from the site of the apparent impalement.

The blood wasn’t real, just a little special effect to make a gory Halloween show, but it was the only thing that wasn’t real. The skewer really was going through Dawn’s elegant neck underneath that orange cover, and because of their involvement in the real magic industry all the onlookers knew it. But that didn’t make it any less impressive.

Finella waited for the scattered applause to die off, then took a second spike and again skewered the woman’s neck. Then a third, a fourth, and finally a fifth.

“Well that’s not going anywhere now,” she said, tugging on the pumpkin to demonstrate how solidly it was now pinned to Dawn’s neck. “So I guess it’s time to deal with what’s inside. After all, real pumpkin lanterns don’t have hazel eyes and luscious lips behind the mask.”

Dawn squeeked at that, and began to struggle. Finella cut her off before she started to panic.

“That drink you set down on the table,” she said. “What was it?”

“Pardon?”

“What were you drinking?” Finella repeated.

“Um, whisky,” Dawn replied.

“Neat?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That’ll do fine.” And with that, Finella snatched the glass tumbler from the table and poured the contents into the open top of the pumpkin, right over Dawn’s head!

“Oi!” the woman exclaimed, spluttering. But she didn’t have a chance to object any further for Finella had already picked up the candle she’d originally removed from the lantern and relit it. She waggled her eyebrows comically at the small crowd then tossed it into the top of the lantern!

There was a flash. A large jet of flame whooshed out of the top of the lantern, and smaller ones shot out the eyes and mouth. Dawn screamed, but her scream was quickly cut off and she lolled forward, to hang there unmoving.

Seconds later the flames flickered and went out. Finella rapped the side of the pumpkin and small particles of soot floated out. The audience were silent, stunned.

“Well, come on up and take a look,” she invited them. That broke the spell and several people quickly stepped up.

Finella had them peer down into the pumpkin that had once held Dawn’s head, even getting one of the audience reach in and feel around the inside. Everyone could see his arm disappear almost up to the elbow and come out coated with ash. Of Dawn’s head, there was clearly nothing left.

Finally, Finella took a fresh candle, lit it, and placed it inside the lantern. The eyes came to life, glowing with flickering amber fire, but still with no sign of the hazel eyes that had been there previously. Then she snapped her fingers in front of the crudely-carved face.

Dawn’s body jerked, and her head - her pumpkin head - came back upright. Finella undid the cuffs, then took the woman’s hand and helped her rise to her feet. She produced a mirror and held it in front of the pumpkin-headed woman’s face.

Dawn leaned forward, tilting her new head from side to side as if examining it in the glass, but didn’t say a word. She couldn’t, Finella knew, lacking a proper mouth and tongue to form words.

“Yes, that’s you now, Dawn,” Finella said, rather more loudly than normal, for the woman also now lacked proper ears to hear with. “At least until the end of the evening. So go and mingle, and I guarantee that no-one will give your chest a second glance.” She patted the transformed Dawn on the shoulder and eased her towards the nearest group of astonished co-workers, who eagerly welcomed her into their circle.

Well that went well, Finella thought. Who’s next?


THE END


NEXT STORY IN SERIES: HALLOWEEN PARTY #2: PHOEBE THE PHANTOM