Enthral_484
Legacy Name: Enthral_484

"A little of this... a dash of this..." With a smile, the man lifted the bowl he was holding to his nose, and sniffed. "Yes, yes, almost there." He reached blindly to his right, too captured by the contents of the bowl to look away. But after a moment of feeling around his workstation, he frowned and pulled his eyes from his work. He glanced around, opened draws and cupboards with increasing urgency. He was trying out a new technique and had seemingly forgotten to double-check he had all of his necessary ingredients on hand before he began.

Where is it? The man placed the bowl back on the workstation, his frown deepening. He searched up and down the table, unwilling to consider that he didn't actually have any. Where is that damn-

He heard the pittering of clothed feet and turned. A tiny stuffed toy with pins studding its head was running towards him, carrying a pink, heart-shaped bottle at least three times its size. The man reached down and plucked the bottle from the toy's up-stretched arms.

"Ah, thank you, little one!" The man scooped the toy into his hand and placed a kiss on its cheek. The toy's stitched face made it appear to grin up at him, and it made a shrill sound, like a bird being ripped apart by a cat. There was a gentle groaning from behind the two of them, but neither seemed to take any notice.

The man placed the toy on his work station. It tottered to the bowl and peered in, its button eyes catching on the rim. The man popped the deep red cork of the bottle and poured a drop of the liquid it contained into the bowl. The bowl's contents swelled, turning a coarse magenta, before slowly deflating to its normal size.

"Just one more ingredient," said the man. The toy watched him walk across the room towards another table, this one made of metal with various rhythmically working and beeping machinery. There was another groan, and the person lying on the table twitched their arm to the side, attempting to catch the man as he walked past. The man swerved his hips without looking, and picked something up from the shelf behind the table.

He brought back the ingredient: a piece of paper with writing on it scrawled on one side. He petted the toy and unfolded the letter. He took a moment to skim over it again; his eyes picked up some of the words.

"Love". "Need". "Adore". You are mine, it finished.

The man smiled and shook his head. His client had been so forlorn, truly believing that their situation was beyond hope. You're my last chance, they had said, tear streaming down their cheeks. Please.

Of course, he had accepted them. As he counted the bank notes they had given him, they read the contract. Or, skimmed it, really; they'd signed it before he'd managed to thumb through the bills.

Great, he'd said, pulling the contract away from them and slipping a piece of dusty pink paper in its place. He handed his new client a pen and ink-well, which they took in shaking hands. Now. Write your desire. He tapped the paper. Keep it to the point and only write on one side.

They obeyed, and the words flowed out of them like blood from a wound. Once they finished they hesitated, eyes skimming over the page. He gently placed a hand on his client's shoulder and they pursed their lips. Are you happy with this? He asked. The client nodded, and the man removed the paper, careful not to smudge the ink. There is just one more thing I need, he said.

Anything, they breathed.

He pulled his toy from his pocket, removed one pin, and held it up. I need a little bit of your blood. His client had flung out their arm, and the man held their hand palm-up and pricked the artery on their wrist. He slipped the pin back in the toy's head and handed his client a tissue. That's it. He's said with a smile. You can go now.

That had been a little over a week ago. He'd had calls from the client daily since then, sometimes every few hours, begging him to work faster.

"You'll have your wish soon," he crooned to the paper, placing it ink-down on the bulbous contents of the bowl. He carefully tucked the corners of the letter underneath it and waited. In a few moments, the ink would dissolve, imprinting the desires of his client onto it, like a branding iron on flesh. Once each letter had left a hole in the paper, it would be removed and discarded. The man waited patiently, tracing his hand across the table for the toy to chase.

His toy had been a breakthrough for his work. He had had others, but Pins was the jewel of his creations. Boarder, while dedicated, was a little too slow, and Trippy had a tendency to, well... trip. Those two still watched his work, though, sitting on a high shelf above the metal table. They would periodically switch their attention from him to his project, making the occasional quiet titter.

They did so now, looking at the man expectantly, and he turned back to the bowl. Sure enough, it was ready. He pealed away the paper and gazed lovingly at his work. Perfection.

Rolling his sleeves up above his elbows, the man carefully slipped his hands under the still beating heart and lifted it from the bowl.

He paused before walking to his project, allowing Pins to attach itself to his coat. He walked slowly, hearing squawks of anticipation from Boarder and Trippy as he reached the metal table. His project was twitching, only half-asleep. The man peered into to the gaping hole in their chest. He turned to Pins, who had climbed onto the table, and the toy scrambled up his project's shoulder and leaned into the hole. It pulled out a small, plastic pump, disconnected the various veins and arteries that fed into it, and carried it away. The man placed his project's heart into the hole and began refusing it with their blood system. "Quickly, quickly," he murmured. His equipment meant they would be able to survive without it, but it did make such a mess when left too long.

Once that was done, he sighed and turned to his toy. He examined the pins sticking out from its head and smiled. "Now," he said, "which one of these is the one I need, hm?"

The toy trilled and shook its head playfully. "Not giving it up, are we?" Its quiet reply was drowned out by a low groan. "Come on, little one," he laughed. "Our project is getting tetchy."

The toy swung its head to one side, considering, then swung it back. One pin began to push its upwards, and the man plucked it out. "Thank you, my dear."

His client's blood was no worse for wear from its holding place. Not a drop had slipped off from the metal pin, and it was still as fresh as the day he had got it. He carefully alined the pin with the left coronary artery of his project's heart and slipped it in. He tapped the pin's head, which glowed a dim red, and waited.

Blood of the client had to be used. Otherwise how would his project know who they were supposed to aim their affections at? He'd learnt that the hard way, at the beginning of his career, when a project of his had fully woken up sooner than he had anticipated and immediately threw themselves at him. It had taken enough of an effort to subdue them - a hard whack to their head on the corner of a coffee table had finally dispatched them - but getting the client off his back was a trial of its own. He was never making that mistake again.

At one point, his standard practice was to have his client's blood mixed in with the ink they wrote their letters in. But that hadn't worked so well. The blood lost its effects after a while, placing an irksome time condition on his work. It was easier to simply take the blood and store it, injecting it during the end of the process instead. He'd made sure Pins would double up as an incubator for convenience when he designed the toy, and it worked like a charm.

The pin head's glow faded and the man removed it. He examined it to make sure all the blood had been absorbed and when he was satisfied, he pressed it back into his toy. He then went about finishing his work, pulling the various pins that held his project's chest open and slipping them back into his toy's awaiting head. He reattached, sutured and wiped his project, paying little attention to the squeaking and squawking of his excited toys.

Finally, his project was finished. All he had to do was detached them from his equipment and deliver them to his client. After that, it was their problem.

~*~

A few weeks later, the man was sitting at his desk, sipping coffee and reading the paper. The stories were, as usually, fairly uninteresting, but he had to do it.

His client has rang him the day after he dropped his present at their door-stop and gushed their gratitude down the phone at him. They already had plans for their wedding and had discussed at length what they would name their children. The client had even sent the man a teddy bear. All in all, the job appeared to have been a success.

But appearances can be deceiving. He'd scanned the paper every day since he wrapped up that project, looking for evidence that his new technique had worked properly. He had another client the previous morning who seemed equally as desperate as this one for him to get to work, but he wanted to make sure his process didn't need any kinks ironed out before he started another project.

As he brought his mug to his lips, a headline on page 4 caught his eye. Crime of Passion Shocks Small Town, it read. The town in question was not too far from here, easily within driving distance. His eyes tracked downwards to a photo of the victim, and he found himself staring at his client's smiling, black-and-white face.

The caption underneath read: Murdered: 34 year old Sidney Broadbent.

The man shot up. Abandoning his coffee, he hurried into his living room, where his toys were play fighting on the rug. He paused to finish skim-reading the article before kneeling in front of them and and showing them page.

The article had been short but concise. It was easy for him to tell what had happened from the information they gave.

Enthralled with his client's desperate desires for them, his project had become obsessed. When his client had eventually found it overwhelming and left them for someone else, his project was driven into a jealous rage. One night they snapped and killed his client, his client's new lover, and then themselves.

The man watched his toys read the article. As the meaning of this news dawned on them, they began to chirp and hop with excitement.

He smiled broadly. "It's wonderful, isn't it? My new method worked perfectly!"

Leaving the paper with his toys, the man strode to his workshop and began the preparations for his next project.