Howard Moon Wins; Vince Noir Loses

Posted on 15 September 200624 July 2021 by Maestro

Howard gets sick of Vince getting all the attention and takes steps of a magical nature to do something about it. You’d be surprised how fast something like that can spin out of control wait, you wouldn’t? Man, you’ve seen this show before, haven’t you?

Category: The Mighty Boosh

Characters: Bollo, Dixon Bainbridge, Howard Moon, Naboo, Vince Noir

Pairing: Howard Moon/Vince Noir

Genre: Angst, Character Study/Reflection, Drama

Rating: PG-13

Status: Complete

Length: 10-20k words

Howard Moon Wins; Vince Noir Loses by Maestro

[nextpage title=”Chapter One”]

Chapter One

“It should have been me!” Howard kicked at a binbag in his path and ripped it open with his boot, scattering fast food containers and empty drink cans everywhere. “Ungrateful bastard.”

To his left, a ring-tailed lemur in one of the cages woke up and started screeching at him, but he gave it the finger and continued on his way, muttering and swearing to himself. Kicking at stones and hearing them ricochet off walls in the darkness.

“Services to zookeeping,” he muttered. “Oh, who should we give this award to? A man who has dedicated his life to the Zooniverse? Given it the best years of his life, stayed in the same crappy job on the same crappy pay day after day?”

“Or,” he punched a low-hanging branch that was in his way, “or should we give it to some know-nothing empty-headed fashion-obsessed tart?”

He reached the zookeepers’ hut, fumbling in his pocket for his keys and dropping them in the dirt with a harsh jangling.

“Oh, Vince. He’s so pretty! He’s so fashionable! He’s so popular! All things that are utterly irrelevant when you’re talking about ‘services to zookeeping’,” he hissed into the air, fingernails clawing through mud and twigs to reach his keys. “I mean, if it was a prize for ‘best hair’, or ‘best androgyny’, or ‘ability to text Howard two hours into a shift and ask him to cover for him because he’s got a hell of a hangover and is going to be late, and then turn up halfway through lunch, bill the Zooniverse as if he’s been in all morning, and then do nothing but go on and on about some bit of stuff he managed to get it up with last night…’” He trailed off, slightly confused as to where that train of thought was heading.

He picked up his keys, wiping the dust from his hands, and attempted to unlock the door, managing to find the key in the lock on the second or third try. “Bastards! All bastards!” The door opened suddenly, and he stumbled over the threshold, slamming it shut behind him.

“I’m gonna fucking smack him. Soon as I see him again, I’ll take that trophy, I’ll shove it up his arse, and then fucking…punch him! Lay him out!” He continued in this vein for several more minutes, slapping at the wall vaguely in his attempts to find the light switch in the darkened hut.

“If there was any way, I mean it, any way to fucking…fucking show him. Show him what it’s like. I mean, if there was, like, a ‘best-dressed zookeeper’ contest, if I could win that.” He flipped the light on finally, crossing the room to slump down on the uncomfortable sofa.

“I’d show him. I’d do anything, just to show him. Ungrateful bastard.”

Howard smacked his lips, suddenly thirsty and trying to work out where he might have left their ‘emergency’ bottle of whisky. He looked over at the kitchenette, and froze when he saw the unfamiliar figure perched on the counter, next to the sink. He swallowed, taking hold of his keys with one hand, having had plenty of experience with strange creatures appearing out of nowhere.

And they didn’t come much stranger than this woman. She sat, cross-legged, in jeans and a T-shirt, her outfit as ordinary as any Zooniverse patron’s. From the neck down she could almost have passed for human. But her skin was blue, the colour of a drowned corpse, and her hair was a vibrant shade of purple, shimmering and twisting under the light as if it were alive. Her face was skull-like, the skin pulled taut across bone, and her eyes…well, creatures of the night always had strange eyes, but she was something else. Her eyes didn’t exist. He was staring into the empty sockets of a skeleton.

She smiled, exposing a set of yellowed teeth, several missing, and leapt down from the counter. Howard noticed distantly that she was wearing leather cowboy boots, but refrained from mentioning it, deciding simply to whimper instead.

“What was it you were saying?” she asked softly, and he was surprised to hear a simple

South London accent. “What were you saying about this fellow Vince Noir?”

“Who are you?” Howard managed, clutching his keys harder. He’d slash her in the face if she came for him, slash and run.

“I can help,” she smiled, perching on the arm of the sofa.

Howard pushed himself into the opposite arm, shrinking back against the padding. “Help? Help how? Who are you?”

She waved the question away with one hand. “My name’s not important. But those that I’ve helped in the past call me The Blue Girl.”

“Catchy,” Howard said with a strained smile. “But I don’t need any help, no thanks. Not unless you’ve drunk all the whiskey.”

“You were shouting,” she said, leaning forward.

“What?” How long had she been there and he hadn’t noticed? “I wasn’t shouting, no sir. Ma’am. No shouting here.”

Her tongue flicked out and brushed past her lips, dry as dust. “Something about this boy Vince, about him having all the luck and you having none.”

Howard couldn’t stop staring into her empty eye sockets. They pulled him in, holding him there, and suddenly he heard himself speak, hypnotised. “It’s just…there’s this prize, and I should’ve won it, but he did. He didn’t even do anything, people just sort of…give him stuff. All the time.” He shook his head. “It’s not fair.”

“I can make it fair,” she grinned. “I can change it so it’s fair. I can give you his luck, give you everything he’s got.” She closed her eyelids, fluttering her fingers a little, and Howard blinked, feeling released. He noticed distantly how flat her eyelids were with nothing to close over.

She raised one eyelid slyly. “But I can do better than that. I can swap you, give him your lot in life. Make it so that he’s as unlucky as you. See how he likes it.”

Howard looked at her doubtfully, heart pounding. “What do you want? My soul?”

The Blue Girl held up both hands and shook her head. “Nothing like that. I work on commission, see. If I transfer his good fortune to you, I get a slice. Nothing too big, nothing you’ll notice. I won’t take anything away from you.”

Howard wrinkled his nose. “I still don’t like it. Magic, spirits…all that stuff. It never ends well.”

“Think about it,” she breathed, and as she spoke images formed in his mind. “You’ll get that prize. Everyone will finally recognise all the hard work you put in around here. They’ll start to remember you. You’ll get recognition. Everything that Vince has – the popularity, the easy life, the love – it will all be yours.”

Howard bit his lip. “It’s tempting, but…no. I mean, I’m fucking angry, but Vince is my best mate. I couldn’t do it to him.”

Unfortunately for Vince, right at that point was when he chose to stumble in drunk. He burst through the door, one hand on the doorknob and the other clutching an over-sized trophy, calling out to a raucous mob outside. “Alright lads! See you later! Yeah, I love you guys too! Keep it real, right?”

He slammed the door, giggling to himself, and then caught sight of Howard, appearing to look right through the spirit perched on the end of the sofa. “Howaaaaaaard!” he called, tripping over his own feet and landing next to him on the sofa in a tangle of arms and legs.

Howard’s lips set in a firm line, and he leaned away from his intoxicated friend. “Vince.”

“I can’t believe it, can you believe it?” Vince snickered, petting his trophy with his free hand. “Who knew? Apparently, Fossil was saying, right, they’re gonna double the prize money. Amazing, eh? What a bunch of…fucking…nice blokes. Nice blokes.”

He reached out to put the trophy down on the arm of the sofa, and Howard flinched, about to call out and say ‘no, not there’. But Vince simply reached through The Blue Girl as if she wasn’t there, putting his cup down in her chest, the handle poking out through her T-shirt. She frowned, snapped her fingers, and the trophy slipped from the arm of the sofa onto the seat. She shook her shoulders like a bird ruffling its feathers.

Vince didn’t seem to notice, cuddling up to Howard’s arm drunkenly. “Yeah, great night. Great night,” he muttered, unaware that he was sealing his own fate. “I mean, Bainbridge only asked if I’d like to have it yesterday. Who knew, right?”

The Blue Girl grinned obscenely as Howard tensed, jerking his shoulder and forcing Vince to sit up. “He what?”

Vince blinked and yawned. “Well, you know the whole thing’s rigged, right? He said, there was this ‘services to zookeeping’ award, and would I like to have it, and I thought…you know. I thought, why not? Especially when I found out about the money, you know I’ve been after that jacket I saw.”

The Blue Girl leaned in. “Everything,” she whispered. “You can have everything. Just say the word.”

Howard glared at his supposed best mate, who had passed out on his shoulder, dark hair splayed out around his face like a negative of a halo. He looked at the trophy resting against his thigh, gleaming against the battered leather of the sofa.

“Absolutely,” he told her.

Vince groaned, pulling a sofa cushion over his face as Howard clattered around in the kitchen, closing cupboard doors, slamming mugs down, clicking the ‘on’ button for the kettle as harshly as possible.

“Want a cup?” he called out to Vince, getting only a muffled curse for his trouble. He slopped boiling water onto his thigh accidentally, but didn’t even frown, whistling to himself happily. He felt good. Better than he’d felt in a long time.

Howard walked over to the sofa and slapped at Vince’s legs until he budged up, allowing Howard to sit down. He slurped his tea noisily, and Vince pulled down the sofa cushion to glare at him.

“What time is it?”

Howard checked his watch theatrically. “Eleven. Eleven in the morning.”

Vince moaned again and rubbed his face with the back of his hand. “I feel like something’s taken a shit in my eyes. Something with a low-fibre diet.”

Howard wrinkled his nose, and put his tea down on the coffee table. “Really,” he said sweetly. “That’s odd, because you never normally get hangovers, eh?”

Vince sat up, hands fiddling obsessively with his hair. “I do sometimes,” he said defensively.

“Yeah, but not usually, right? I mean, it’s just odd, don’t you think? That you should get one today.”

“I…suppose?” Vince managed, digging around in the sofa with a concerned expression.

“I don’t have a hangover,” Howard said hopefully, but Vince ignored him.

“You weren’t drinking as much as I was. Where’s my-”

Howard cut him off with a nod at the mantelpiece, where Vince’s ‘Services to Zookeeping’ trophy had pride of place. A shiny new plaque was screwed to the base, reading ‘2006 – VINCENT NOIR’.

“One of Bainbridge’s men took it away this morning and brought it back like that.”

Vince got to his feet, wincing, but wearing an expression of pure pleasure as he walked over to the trophy. “Wow,” he managed. “Hey Howard, think you could take a picture of me and the trophy? Bryan’d love to see this.”

“Sure,” Howard said through clenched teeth as Vince practised posing with it in the mirror, needing both hands to hold the heavy weight up to his face. When was this good luck supposed to kick in?

There was a crackle of static from the loudspeaker in the corner of the room, and Vince yelped, covering his ears.

“Here we go,” Howard said happily, sitting forward to hear what Fossil had to say.

“Announcement: will Howard Moon please come to my office? Thank you.”

Perfect, thought Howard. He wants to give me the trophy.

There was another burst of static, and Fossil’s voice resumed its nonsense again. “Oh, and if the award-winning zookeeper Vince Noir would like to make an appearance too, I’d be real grateful. We wanna hand over your prize money, Vincey. But, you know, whenever’s good. Take your time.”

Well, maybe he means me too.

“Not you, Moon, you get here right now.”

Oh.

Howard pulled himself to his feet, his whistling slightly less cheerful. Vince primped his hair a couple of times in the mirror, and then followed him out, trophy under one arm.

“Aren’t you going to get changed? Those are the clothes you were wearing last night.”

Vince looked down at himself and shrugged. “Nah, it’ll do for this morning. The walk of shame look’s totally now.”

“Well, do you have to bring that?” Howard nodded at the trophy.

Vince cradled it to his chest like it was his baby. “You kidding? I’m not letting this thing out of my sight. Bunch of thieves in this place, you know that.”

Howard followed him out of the hut, muttering to himself.

Fossil’s face lit up as they entered his office. “Vincent! Vincey baby, how you doin’? You were pretty wasted after that party last night, you didn’t have to come in this morning, you know.” He dusted down one of his seats and spread out a clean handkerchief, motioning for Vince to sit down. “Nothing’s too good for our little award-winner.”

Vince nodded his thanks, and sat down, balancing the trophy on his knees carefully. Howard started to sit down in the other chair, but Fossil glared at him.

“Hey Moon, who said you could stretch out my high-quality armchairs with your freakish ass, huh? You stand, monkey boy.”

Howard sighed, hands in pockets. It seemed less and less likely that his luck was going to change, but he decided to see it out. Perhaps it was a slow-burn, perhaps by the end of the meeting Fossil would have promoted him to head zookeeper.

“Now, Vincey. Vincey darling. My little baby lollipop Vincey Noir boy bitch.”

“Hi,” said the boy bitch in question.

Fossil picked up an envelope from his desk. “As you know, because of the magnitude of your services to zookeeping since your arrival, Dixon Bainbridge himself has given me the green light to double your prize money, something we’re all very excited about. It gives me great pleasure in my happy place to award you this cheque.”

Fossil handed Vince the envelope, and then started clapping, nodding like an idiot at Howard to do the same. Howard managed a half-hearted couple of claps as Vince cooed over his money, before he came to his senses.

“Um, Mr Fossil?”

“Yeah, what?”

Howard cleared his throat nervously. “Well, it was just…I was wondering…if there was any chance of, sort of, re-evaluating your managerial decision?”

Fossil’s mouth hung open. “Wha’?”

“Well, I just wondered if you hadn’t made a mistake in giving this award to Vince. That maybe you might want to give it to someone with more experience. Someone who’s been at the Zooniverse longer.”

Vince scoffed, but Fossil held up one hand seriously, quietening him down. “Someone with more experience, huh? Like you, maybe?”

“Well,” Howard ducked his head modestly, “I wouldn’t like to say.”

“And I should give you the trophy?”

“If…if you like. I mean, it’s up to you.”

Fossil stroked his chin. “And the cheque, right? I mean, if you’re getting the award, the prize money oughtta go to you.”

Vince clutched the envelope instinctively, and Howard smirked. “Well, I wouldn’t say no.”

“You wouldn’t say no, huh? Well, I’ll most definitely give this serious thought.”

“You will?” Howard puffed up. Here we go.

“Sure!” Fossil smiled sweetly. “I mean, I’ll give it serious thought while you go off and empty all the manure buckets in the Zooniverse, because you’re on crap duty for a month!” His face contorted with rage and went red. “Jesus, Moon! How ‘bout we give you an award for tryin’ to muscle in on Vincey’s success, huh? Or maybe an award for ‘man with poop all over his hands’, ‘cause I’m thinking how maybe we lost the little shit shovel and you’re gonna have to use the gifts God gave ya instead!”

Howard froze, an expression of horror on his face. “No, really, it’s fine.”

“You’re goddamn right it’s fine, get movin’! Crap duty, go go go go!” He clapped his hands together, shouting at Howard as he scampered out of the room. His screams followed him all the way down the corridor to the supply cupboard, where, sure enough, the manure shovel was missing.

Howard wasn’t using his hands, thank Christ. Muttering and sniping to himself, he’d decided to use one of the old food shovels instead. The handle was half broken through, and threatened to dump manure onto his shoes at any moment, but it was better than the alternative.

He glared at the frogs, croaking away at him. He knew they were mocking him. And how could two frogs, each hardly bigger than your clenched fist, make so much bloody mess anyhow? A conspiracy, that’s what it was. Everyone had it in for him. Even that Blue Girl, whatever her name was, yesterday, she’d been a joke. Probably one of Naboo’s mates winding him up, it seemed like his sort of style.

He sighed heavily, shovelling frog poo into a heavy-duty binbag. No, he was doomed to toil away in obscurity here in the Zooniverse, on and on until he was grey haired and bent double. He’d probably have a heart attack, keel over in a small pile of manure and suffocate to death. A fitting end for Howard TJ Moon.

He heard laughter somewhere over to his left, and turned, seeing Vince giggling away with a small crowd around him. He was still clutching that stupid trophy, telling various under-zookeepers that “sure you can touch it – if you wipe your fingerprints off after, yeah?” A chorus of laughter met every single sentence almost before he could finish it.

Howard shook his head. How one man could attract such devotion, he’d never know. If anyone should have a crowd around him, it should be Howard. Maybe Vince had stuck a spell on him when they’d met, stolen all his natural charisma.

He knew he had charisma, somewhere.

The handle of the shovel broke through and dumped frog crap all over his legs.

“Shit! Shitting fucking fuck!” he yelled, kicking at the cage wall. The frogs looked at him. “Yeah, you!” he shouted at them, shaking his fist.

“Can I help you?” he heard a soft, slightly European voice behind him, and turned to see Mrs Gideon peering through the bars.

He smoothed down his hair hastily, for all the good it did. “No, Mrs Gideon…I work here, I’ve worked here for many long years. I’m not lost.”

She peered at him over her glasses, amused. “Yes, I know you work here. You’re wearing a Zooniverse uniform, after all.”

Howard gaped at her.

She tapped one long finger against her lips. “You work with amphibians, yes?”

“Aviary!” Howard blurted out, edging towards the bars. “I’m Head of Aviary, Mrs Gideon.”

She smiled. “Aviary, of course. Yes, I’ve seen you with Vince.”

Howard’s heart sank. “Have you,” he said in a flat voice.

“Such a talented boy,” Mrs Gideon said, eyes shining and looking off into the distance. “You must be very proud to have him as a boss.”

“He’s my assistant, actually.”

Mrs Gideon laughed, a charming tinkling sound, and she hid her mouth behind one hand. “Yes, well. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mr…?”

Howard smiled. “Moon, Mrs Gideon. Howard Moon.”

“Howard.” She nodded to him, and continued on her way.

Howard watched her leave, musing. This could be it, it could be his luck on the change. Or it could just be reflected glory from Vince, he thought moodily, hearing yet another peal of laughter. He picked up both ends of the broken shovel, and wandered off to borrow some duct tape and spare trousers from Joey.

“Hey mister, mister!” Howard turned, about to kick the small boy tugging at his jacket, but stopped when he realised the brat didn’t have a stone or a can of spray paint.

“Er, yes?” He looked at the boy warily. The younger patrons of the Zooniverse had pursued a campaign of terror against him ever since he could remember, and he was desperately trying to work out what new phase of destruction this would present itself as.

“Are you Mr Moon?” the little boy asked in a pathetically cute voice, eyes wide.

“That…depends. Why are you looking for…him?” Howard said slowly, reaching for his rape whistle.

The little boy pointed at an old, battered piece of cardboard tied to one of the signposts, reading ‘Mr Moon’s Animal Stories for Wee Kiddies – Reptile Lounge, 2pm.’ It was weather-beaten and torn, and had been up there for about eight months, the only remnant of Howard’s disastrous attempt to both reconnect with the children and impress Mrs Gideon. There had only ever been one session of Howard’s storytelling, which had begun with him offering to let one of them sit on his knee to read out some of the words, and had ended three minutes later with him curled in a ball while the children showered him with bottles and juice boxes and called him a paedophile.

“What about it? If you’re bringing a lawsuit, you should know that I’m…that Mr Moon is a trained legal professional, and he’s won many cases in animal…litigation…al. Yeah.”

The little boy’s bottom lip began to wobble, and Howard reared back in case the kid vomited all over Joey’s spare trousers. “I want a story,” he sniffled. “We all want Mr Moon to read us a story. We’ve been waitin’ and waitin’ and…and…” His eyes brimmed with tears.

Howard glanced at his watch. It was three-thirty.

“Alright,” he said slowly. “I’m Howard Moon.” He shielded his face, but no flurry of blows was forthcoming.

Instead the little boy simply wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and said, “And are you coming to read us a story, sir?”

Sir? It had to be a trap. Howard looked around for the video camera or the horde of children hiding around a corner, waiting for him. “Alright,” he said slowly. He held up a finger. “But people know where I am, okay? They’ll come looking for me eventually.”

“Yaaaaay!” the little boy called out, taking hold of Howard’s hand and pulling him bodily off to the Reptile Lounge.

As he reached the entrance, he saw Mrs Gideon standing outside, polishing her glasses on a little blue cloth. The little boy let go of his hand. “I’ll go in and tell everybody, sir.” He disappeared inside, and moments later a deafening cheer could be heard.

Howard swallowed a couple of times, reaching up to run a hand over his forehead.

Mrs Gideon smiled at him. “Well, you do seem to have attracted quite a crowd, Ronald.”

“Howard,” he corrected her instinctively.

She put a hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry, how terribly rude of me. Howard. I’ll do my best to remember that.”

Howard smiled at her uncertainly. “Thanks. That’s kind.”

She gestured to the thin curtain leading in to his audience. “Better not keep them waiting any longer, hmm?”

“No, no.” He reached up to pull the curtain aside, then a thought occurred to him. “Um, if…if something happens, will you…tell Vince, I have a sister in Essex somewhere, she should be told. He can have anything of my stuff she doesn’t want.” He bit his lip. “And, and…he was a good friend.” He tipped his head from side to side, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Well, he was a friend. Most of the time.”

Mrs Gideon laughed. “You are silly, Howard.”

Howard simply gaped at her, at his name coming out of her mouth. The calls of ‘We want Mr Moon!’ brought him out of his stupor, and he headed inside.

“…and they asked for an encore, Vince. It was amazing. Utterly amazing. They all got up and chanted, Mrs Gideon had to bring me back on, and afterwards, they all wanted me to sign things!” Howard frowned. “I mean, they only had ice lolly sticks and sweet wrappers, and I didn’t have a pen, but still! Autographs, Vince!”

Vince edged forward on the sofa a little more. “Mmm,” he said vaguely, turning up the volume on the television.

“And Vince, Vince.” Howard tugged on his sleeve, but Vince pulled away. “Vince, Mrs Gideon remembered my name. I mean, eventually. But she called me ‘Howard’!” He sat back with an expression of pure glee.

“Yeah, well,” Vince muttered. “It’s about time, isn’t it? It was bound to kick in sooner or later, even with someone like you.”

Howard couldn’t stop grinning. “Just. The best day ever.”

“You haven’t asked me how my day was, you know.”

“That’s because I already know how your day went.”

Vince leaned away from Howard, pouting.

Howard sighed. “Oh, fine. Please. Tell me how your day was,” he said flatly.

Vince muted the television, and turned to him, putting his feet up. “Well, it was a right shocker, wasn’t it?”

“Was it?” Howard said doubtfully.

Vince shook his head. “I couldn’t believe it. I kept asking people to wipe their fingerprints off my trophy, right? And no one did! I spent, like, five whole minutes cleaning it! I tell you, this award-winning business is harder than it looks.”

“Is it.”

“Yeah, I’m beginning to wish I’d never seen the bloody thing.”

Howard stood up. “Well, we’ll see, won’t we? I’m going to bed.”

“Hey, hang on.” Vince nodded to the trophy. “You said you were going to take a picture, remember? For Bryan Ferry?”

Howard made a dismissive gesture. “Tomorrow, I’m exhausted. And I stink of shit.”

Vince laughed, flicking the volume back on. “Yeah, you said it.”

Howard glared at him as he left the room.

“Morning, Mr Fossil,” Howard muttered into his jacket as he entered his office.

Fossil looked up from his paperwork and frowned. “Where the hell is Noir?”

“He’s still asleep.” Slumped on the sofa, snoring open-mouthed.

“What, again? It’s, like…” Fossil pulled up first one sleeve, then the next, looking for a watch, and eventually was forced to spin around in his swivel chair to look at the clock behind him. “It’s noon.”

“Yeah, well,” Howard shrugged. “You know Vince.”

“Yeah, I do,” Fossil said in a voice that sounded almost, but not quite, irritated. “Anyway, what the hell are you doing here?”

Howard sighed. “Orders, Mr Fossil. Just wondering whether the new manure shovel had arrived.”

“I gave it to Joey,” Fossil muttered, scribbling out something on a little yellow piece of paper.

Howard rolled his eyes. But of course he had. Even when Fossil was punishing someone he couldn’t be organised. “Right, well, I’ll go get it off him.”

“No, you honky-tonk,” Fossil called out, and Howard stopped and turned. “Joey’s on the shit stick today. You can, I don’t know…feed the goats or something.”

Howard frowned. Were the goats particularly bitey this morning? “Uh, why?”

“Why?” Fossil just looked at him. “Why not? Who cares? You want to be on poo patrol?”

“No! I mean, no thanks, sir.”

“Well then.” Fossil turned back to his work, closing his eyes and randomly picking out a piece of paperwork at random. He cursed, then caught sight of a dumbstruck Howard. “You still here? Get the piss outta my sight, go on! Scat!”

Howard fled.

“I don’t see why Fossil had to have a go at me, though,” Vince muttered into his bucket of fruit and vegetables. “I mean, I’ve slept in before. I don’t see why today is any different.”

Howard shrugged. “He seemed a bit overworked this morning. Maybe Bainbridge is putting extra pressure on him or something.” He shot a sly look at his friend. “Maybe he just wants you to live up to the title of ‘services to zookeeping’.”

Vince stuck his tongue out at him. “That’s not a title.” He fed another rancid orange to a goat, making little chuck-chucking noises as it ate it out of his hand.

Howard gave a mouldy carrot to another, and darted back as it tried to eat his sleeve as well.

“I dunno, he’s all moody. It’s not right. I shouldn’t have to deal with it.”

Howard folded his arms. “Oh, and who should? Me, I suppose?”

Vince shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean.”

“I’ll bet.”

Vince shot him a look. “You know, you’re pretty moody too.”

“Oh, I wonder why that could be?”

“Well, I don’t know! Ow!” Vince dropped his bucket and clutched at his right hand. “What the hell?”

Howard was at his side immediately, prising Vince’s fist open and taking a look. The goat he was feeding had bitten him on the finger, not too badly, but there was a little blood. “We need to get you to the hut, back to the first aid kit.”

Vince shook him off, jamming his injured hand under his armpit. “What gives, Horatio?” he asked the goat. “Why did you have to bite me?”

The goat continued chewing mechanically, staring up at him.

It’s all wrong.

Howard blinked a couple of times.

“Horatio? Answer me, come on! What is it?”

You smell weird, Vince. Sorry. Instinct. You don’t smell right.

“Did you say something?” he asked Vince.

“Yeah, I was talking to the goat,” he said over his shoulder. “Asking him why he’s giving me the silent treatment. What have I done, eh?”

Silent treatment?

Howard shook his head from side to side, like he had water trapped in his ear. It felt like voices were springing out of the air just next to him, from nowhere.

I’m not giving you silent treatment. I’m trying to explain, Vince. You smell different, is it a new aftershave?

Vince narrowed his eyes. “Fine. Fine. Be that way.” He held up a finger just out of biting distance. “I’ll remember this next time you’re looking for chat-up lines, though.” He stomped off back to the zookeeper’s hut, not waiting for Howard.

Vince? Vince, what’s wrong? The next goat disco isn’t for two weeks, anyway!

Howard clutched at his head.

VINCE?

“Alright, keep it down!” he said before he could stop himself, and then clamped a hand over his mouth. As if on a silent command, every single goat turned to stare at him. Most of them stopped chewing, their eyes fixed on his. He backed up against the wall.

You can talk to us?

“No!” he whimpered.

You can understand us?

“…shit.”

Hey Horatio, if this guy can understand us, maybe Vince can’t. Maybe there’s weird voodoo going on here, eh?

“No, nothing like that! Nothing at all!” He edged along the wall to the door, the goats moving to follow him, bunching up in their pen.

You stole Vince’s powers.

“Didn’t!” He struggled with the door.

You’re stealing his life.

“I’m not…I’m sorry…” He wrenched it open, and hurried out, closing the door behind him. He drew in a shaking breath, running a hand over his face. That was…unexpected. And unwanted. Wasn’t it? He’d never wanted to talk to animals. Not…really.

Sometimes.

But he hadn’t wanted them to be abusive to him.

Jacket up around his ears, he hurried through the Zooniverse to the zookeepers’ hut. As he went, he was sure he could feel the animals watching him, through the bars, through the leaves. Sparrows on a bench stopped tweeting as he walked by.

Traitor, someone said, and he span around to see a dog on a lead straining to reach him. His owner shot Howard a small smile, and tugged the animal away.

Thief, called a squirrel from a nearby tree, scampering away even as he turned to look at it.

Murderer, screeched the lemurs from their cage as he hurried by, rattling the bars at him.

He ran into the hut, closing the door behind him, shaking, pale. Vince was sitting at the table, the first aid kit in front of him and a bandage inexpertly wound around his finger.

The animal calls in the Zooniverse got louder and louder, raising to a cacophony, and Howard stepped away from the door, pulling the curtains closed and generally acting like a siege victim.

Vince, get out of there! Vince, he’s trying to hurt you! Vince, listen to us! HE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND!

Vince looked up at him, mouth hanging open. “Howard?”

Oh God, thought Howard.

“Howard, I can’t understand them. Any of them. It just sounds like screeching and howling.” He put a hand to his forehead. “Am…am I sick?”

Howard pulled him into a hug, hoping that Vince’s shaking would mean he wouldn’t notice Howard’s. “I suppose you must be,” he said, hating himself.

Howard didn’t get any sleep that night. He spent most of it pacing the floor, listening to the gossip spread through the zoo as the nocturnal animals were filled in on it all – …mindraping him somehow, we’re not sure…

Stuffing his fingers in his ears didn’t help. Whatever talent Vince had, whatever talent Howard had borrowed, it had nothing to do with actual soundwaves. Voices appeared inside his head, like schizophrenia. There was no way of blocking them out, short of leaving the zoo.

This wasn’t what he wanted. He’d wanted Vince’s luck, his abilities, true, but he hadn’t wanted to take them from him…had he? He wanted Vince to know what it was like to be him, to be ignored and a nobody, and he supposed, maybe, stopping him talking to animals was part of that…because the animals loved him. And to give him a taste of Howard’s life, he needed…not to be loved.

But Vince’s face when Howard had made him a cup of tea, curled up on the sofa like a child. He looked so small. And he kept saying, “Isn’t it quiet?” Howard had had to nod and smile, going along with it, with all the creatures of the zoo howling in his ears.

“I want it to stop,” he said out loud, and at the same time realised he didn’t mean it. He bit his lip. What was one bad day compared to a bad lifetime? Vince needed…he needed to know what it was like. Yeah. Talking to animals, that was amazing. Think what he could do! Treat them, train them, do anything. He could get the animal perspective on zookeeping. He wouldn’t squander this gift, like Vince – he would help the animals, reach a greater understanding between man and beast. He could be the greatest zookeeper that ever lived.

They’d quieten down eventually. And Howard would give Vince his abilities back, eventually.

It wasn’t like any of this was a forever thing. Not at all.

Howard and Vince sat side by side in Fossil’s office, Vince unusually pale, even for him.

“Jesus, Vince, you look like crap. I hope you didn’t spend all that prize money on drugs already,” Fossil yelled at him, and Vince simply shook his head.

“I only bought a jacket, Mr Fossil.”

“Well, good.” Fossil got up and walked around the desk, perching on it, looking between the two of them. “Because, see, it looks like someone made a mistake.”

Howard’s heart leapt.

“Now, I’m naming no names.” He put a hand to the side of his mouth and mouthed, “Joey Moose.” He cleared his throat and continued. “But someone miscounted the votes for the awards. See, Vince, we thought you won the ‘services to zookeeping’ award, right?”

“What?” Vince managed.

“…but actually, and really, we oughtta noticed this one sooner, Howard won it. Yeah, he got the most votes.”

Howard pressed a hand to his mouth, his pulse racing. “I won?”

“Yeah, you won!” Fossil actually smiled at him. “I mean, we shoulda guessed, right? You’ve been here longer an’ all, and Vince is only your assistant-”

“I am not!”

Fossil put one hand on his back. “So we’ll have the plaque changed to your name, and you can just have Vince write you a cheque for the money, Howie baby.” Fossil’s hand slipped down to his arse, and Howard jerked away.

“Uh, thanks. I mean, thank you! Wow.” He grinned.

Vince folded his arms and sulked. “Can we have another recount?”

“Shut up, Vince,” Fossil told him. “Hey Howard. Come give your Uncle Bob Bob a hug.”

“Hey, Howard! Lookin’ good!”

Vince peered over his shoulder. “Who was that?”

Howard shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Just someone who wanted to wish me well, I guess.”

“Oh, right.” Vince kicked at a pebble moodily.

Howard watched him. “Won’t you scuff your shoes?”

“So?”

“If you scuff them, you’ll have to polish them.”

Vince stuck his tongue out at him. “Don’t have to do anything.”

Murderer, a parrot squawked at him as they went past, but it had been a couple of weeks since the animals had found out what Howard was up to, and they hadn’t been able to get through to Vince. Most of them had lost interest, resigning themselves to simply ignoring him, which was less punishment than they thought it was.

“Howard! Howard, wait a minute!” Mrs Gideon ran after them both, and Howard stopped for her. Vince continued a little way, and then walked back, sighing theatrically.

“Ah, Howard,” Mrs Gideon said breathlessly. “I’m glad I caught up with you.”

“What can I do you for?” asked Howard, and she giggled girlishly.

“Ah, well, the children have been asking after you, and they wanted me to make a request on their behalf.”

Howard stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for her to go on.

She bit her lip nervously. “You see, your stories are so popular, and now that more people are coming to see you…well, the children wondered if you might do an extra reading each week.” She clasped her hands together like she was begging.

Howard tipped his head to one side. “I dunno, Mrs Gideon. I’m sort of…busy, these days. I might not be able to fit you in.”

Her face fell. “Well, of course…that is what I told them, but I said I would ask.” She put her hand on his arm. “I mean, you will try? You won’t forget?”

Howard moved his arm, subtly shaking her off. “I’ll do my best.”

Vince sneezed, wiping his nose with a torn tissue from his pocket, and Mrs Gideon regarded him with disgust. “Sorry, Howard, who is this?”

Vince laughed. “Yeah, whatever. Very funny.”

Mrs Gideon took a step back. “Howard? Is this a friend of yours?”

“It’s me, Mrs Gideon. Vince Noir?”

She looked him up and down and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I used to DJ with Mr Rodgers, remember? I work here. At the zoo. With Howard.” Vince gestured to his Zooniverse jacket, but Mrs Gideon simply shrugged and smiled apologetically.

“I must be getting back. Don’t forget, Howard.” She glanced at Vince. “It was lovely to meet you, Lance.”

“Vince!” Vince called after her.

Howard hid a grin.

“Well, that was weird,” Vince muttered as they continued on their way to the zookeepers’ hut.

“Er, what was?”

Vince nodded over his shoulder. “That. Mrs Gideon blatantly flirting with you, and you just doing nothing.”

“Oh.” Howard relaxed a little, avoiding the evil eye one of the monkeys was giving him. “Well, I think…I think it was just wanting what I couldn’t have, you know? I mean, now she’s after me, I just don’t…I’m not interested.”

“Yeah?” Vince nudged the door to the hut open with his shoulder. “Crazy times.”

“You have no idea.”

Howard gaped as Vince came out of his bedroom, dragging his feet, his head almost on his chest. “What are you doing?”

Vince looked up at him, and managed a weak smile. “Sorry, I’m just a bit tired.”

“No, I mean, what do you look like?”

Vince looked down at his outfit, a pair of old tattered jeans and a shirt that was two sizes too big. His hair looked like he’d slept on it, puffed up and giant on one side and flat on the other. And his makeup was smeared. “What’s wrong with it?”

Howard swallowed. “Vince. This thing tonight, it’s a proper dinner-and-dance do. I mean, look what I’m wearing.” He gestured at his tuxedo, his bow tie, his shiny shoes.

Vince grinned. “Yeah, you look good. I don’t think I have anything that nice.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you do.” Howard pushed past him and into Vince’s room, strewn with clothing and rubbish. There was an odd smell, and he opened a window.

“Aww, don’t do that,” Vince muttered. “It’s all cold now.”

Howard pulled out an outfit at random, black trousers, silver boots, a dressy top. A scarf to match. He turned around to pass it to Vince, and saw that he was lying down on the bed, yawning.

“Vince?”

“I think…maybe…I’m coming down with something. I’m so tired.”

Howard sat next to him on the bed, brushed some of the hair out of his eyes. “Are…are you in any pain? You’re not running a fever.”

“Just tired…” Vince said sleepily, turning into Howard’s touch. “Think…I’ll give tonight a miss. You go, though.”

“No, not if you’re sick.” Howard glanced at his watch. “I’ll just ring Fossil, tell him I can’t make it. I’ll stay in and look after you.”

Vince blinked at him, smiling slowly. “You’re a good friend, Howard.”

Howard pulled his hand away, staring at it, at the tan of it compared to Vince’s almost bone-white skintone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m great.”

“Hey, Howard! You look great, how are you? Your hair looks fantastic!” Naboo moved a bottle off the most comfortable chair in the room, usually reserved for Vince, and gestured for Howard to sit down.

Vince followed him into the room, and Naboo barely glanced at him. He slumped down in a beanbag, resting his head against the wall and blinking slowly.

Howard smiled weakly. “Hey, Naboo. We were…me and Vince, we were just wondering, see, Vince isn’t feeling too good. Have you got anything that might help him?”

Naboo looked at Vince for the first time, and his eyes widened in shock. “You look awful.”

“I feel fine, really. I kept saying, ‘don’t make a fuss’, but you know.” Vince looked at Howard fondly. “You know what he’s like.”

“Yeah, always thinking of other people first.” After offering Howard the hookah – which he declined – Naboo rooted around on the floor, finally coming up with a little bell.

When he rang it, Bollo appeared. He took one look at Howard, and bared his teeth. “Murderer!” he grunted, getting ready to spring.

Howard leapt to his feet, pulse racing. “Now, now Bollo, just wait…”

Vince’s reflexes were a little slower, but he put himself in front of Howard as soon as he managed to get to his feet, one hand across Howard’s chest, the other out to keep Bollo at a safe distance.

Bollo blinked at Vince, inexpressibly sad. “Vince, look what he do to you…your beautiful face, all gone! Gone to him!”

Vince frowned. “What?”

Naboo gave Bollo a little push. “Stop it. I’ll send you back to the jungle if you’re not careful. No Countdown out there, you know.”

Bollo grunted, but took a step back, although he didn’t stop glaring at Howard.

“Naboo, Howard cast a spell on Vince. Taken all his power, all his life energy.”

Howard froze.

Naboo and Vince laughed out loud. “What are you talking about?” asked Naboo.

“Vince used to be pretty creature, life of party. Now look at him.” Bollo gestured at Vince, who was wearing his oversized colourless clothes.

“Vince has always been like that. Sit down, Vince,” Naboo ordered, and Vince immediately slumped down in his beanbag.

“You bad man,” Bollo said to Howard, who was shaking.

“Go and make the tea.”

Bollo shot Howard one last look, and then left the room. They heard him banging around angrily in the kitchen, and Naboo sighed.

“I think it’s hormonal. Maybe,” he shuddered, “mating season.”

“Yeah.” Howard gulped, looking at the thin beaded curtain separating their room from the kitchen, and shook his head, coming back to himself. “Sorry, yeah. Vince is sick, Naboo. We were just wondering if you could help out.”

Naboo stood up, and motioned for Vince to do likewise. Vince pulled himself up using the wall, grunting a little, and Howard helped him to his feet. Vince shot him a grateful smile. Howard didn’t meet his eyes.

“Right, let’s see…” Naboo muttered, climbing onto the coffee table so they were the same height. He gripped Vince by each ear and turned his head about, peering into his mouth, examining his scalp. He made some thinking sounds, and nodded to himself, taking Vince’s pulse.

“He’s alright, yeah? I mean, he’s just tired. He’s not…nothing’s going to happen?” Howard watched the two of them anxiously.

“I’ve got something, don’t worry,” Naboo said, jumping off the table and leaving the room.

Vince swayed a little on his own, and Howard guided Vince into his chair. “Here, it’s more comfortable than that old beanbag.”

“Thanks, Howard.”

Bollo entered the room with a tray of chipped mugs, and put it down on the table with a clatter. He looked from a shamefaced Howard to a yawning Vince carefully.

“Vince,” Bollo said, passing him the biggest cup of tea. “Vince, this just a spell. You got to pull yourself out of it.”

“I’m fine, really,” Vince said, holding his cup with both hands, and blowing on it gently. “Just tired. I just sleep a lot.”

“Remember how it used to be, in old days? You were precious flower, light up room.”

Vince laughed, a laugh that turned into a cough. Howard was by his side immediately, patting him on the back, and Bollo watched him curiously.

“Nah, Bollo,” Vince said, when he could speak again, “you’re thinking of Howard. I’ve never really been what you’d call memorable, eh?”

Howard’s hand rubbed circles on Vince’s back.

Bollo edged closer. “No, think. You used to have friends. Used to be life and soul of party.”

Vince frowned, eyes looking distant. “Just…tired. So tired.”

Bollo looked up at Howard. “How can you do this? Your best friend?”

Howard just watched his hand rubbing on Vince’s back. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’ll stop it, I swear.”

“When?”

Howard was saved from answering by Naboo’s return into the room. He tossed a slim cardboard box into Vince’s lap and sat down, sipping at his tea eagerly.

“What’s this?” Howard asked, taking the box away from Vince, who hadn’t even picked it up.

“Iron tablets. S’probably just a touch of anaemia.”

As Howard got up to leave, he realised that Vince had fallen asleep again.

Howard closed Vince’s bedroom door behind him and clapped his hands. “Come on, get up!”

Vince stirred, one eye open. “Wha’? What time is it?”

“It’s late.” It always was. Howard walked over to Vince’s wardrobe and started going through it, pulling out clothing and laying it on the bed next to him.

“What’re you doing, Howard? Are we going somewhere?” Vince rubbed his eyes and sat up, flannel pyjamas tipping to one side and revealing a collarbone that was desperate to push through his skin.

“We’re going to fix you.” Howard walked back to the bed and picked out an outfit, passing it to Vince. “Here, put this on.”

Vince looked at the shiny material doubtfully, wincing as it reflected sunlight into his eyes. “Okay.”

Howard kept his back turned gallantly as Vince climbed into what used to be his best clothes, and rooted around in his dressing table for his bag of make-up. Foundation, eyeliner, lip-gloss – all things Vince no longer wore.

“How do I look?”

Howard turned around, and had to close his eyes, it was so awful.

Same clothes, different Vince. The clothes that had used to draw the eye, that had used to cling to him so well, hung down like he was wearing a sack. They seemed to have got bigger, perhaps, the sleeves hanging down over Vince’s fingers. He looked like a child dressed up in his mother’s outfit.

And the boots that had once made Vince so confident, a strutting peacock…he stood awkwardly in them, teetering, stumbling every now and then.

Howard put a hand on his shoulder, made him sit on the bed. “You look great,” he lied.

He pulled Vince’s dressing table stool closer, and sat in front of him, bag of make-up on the bed next to him.

Vince smiled sleepily. “It’s really nice of you to spend time on me, Howard. I know you’re busy right now, what with the promotion and the extra responsibilities and everything.”

Howard dusted foundation lightly across Vince’s face, frowning when it just seemed to turn him orange. He wiped it off with a small sponge and tried again, to no avail.

“I mean,” Vince continued, eyes closed, “it can’t be easy for you, having to look after me all the time.”

“I don’t mind,” Howard muttered, trying a touch of blusher but only succeeding in making Vince look like Coco the Clown.

“Sometimes I think, maybe, if I went away somewhere, somewhere I wouldn’t be such a hassle to you-”

“Don’t say that!” Howard said firmly, holding onto Vince’s chin, forcing his eyes open.

Vince licked his lips, coughed. “Well, no. Not if you don’t want me to.”

“Look, I’m going to try some eyeliner. You think you can do it yourself?” Howard held out the slim black pencil, and Vince looked at it, chewing on his lip.

“Could you do it? I’ll only muck it up, I know.”

Howard sighed, but held Vince’s face as still as possible, leaning in and watching his eyes. He reached out, started to pencil around them, trying to make them stand out, wondering when it was that Vince’s eyes had become so colourless, so grey…

“Ow!” Vince yelped, clutching his eye, and Howard jerked back, reached out for some cotton wool and passed it to him.

“Shit, sorry Vince, sorry…are you okay?”

Vince pressed a cotton wool ball to his eye, hissing in pain, but managed a tight nod.

“Okay, okay. Forget make-up, it’s clearly too much work.” Howard tapped the eyeliner pencil against his palm. “There must be something…”

He got to his feet and moved over to Vince’s hat cupboard. He scanned the shelves quickly, and then pulled out Vince’s favourite – a bright red gambler’s hat with studs around the crown. If this didn’t fix him…he cut off that thought right there.

He motioned for Vince to stand with him in front of the mirror, and then stood behind him, placing the hat carefully on his head. He adjusted it a little, taking a look at his handiwork.

It was shit.

Vince closed his eyes and laughed. “I’m sorry Howard, I appreciate the time, really I do…it’s just not working.” He raised his arms, swathes of material following in their wake like wings. “I mean, look at me.”

He reached up and took the hat off, his hair springing out with static, and turned around. “You, though…” He rested the hat carefully on Howard’s head, pulling at the brim and the angle for a bit, and then stepped out of the way of Howard’s reflection.

It looked perfect.

“You can wear anything, Howard,” Vince said, leaning against the wardrobe. “You’re so lucky.”

“How many times, Howard, you’re not under a spell,” Naboo sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t know what Bollo’s been telling you, but you’re fine. Things have always been like this.”

“No, they haven’t.” Howard gripped Naboo’s sleeve. “They used to be different. I want them back how they were. I want Vince back.”

Naboo sniffed. “Vince is just shy.”

“Shy? Vince Noir, shy? Naboo, think about what you’re saying!” Howard let go of his sleeve and ran his hands through his hair, pulling at it.

“That’s a good look for you.”

“Okay, okay.” Howard bit his fingernail, thinking intently. “This spirit, the one who cast the spell, she said her name was the Blue Girl. Does that ring a bell?”

Naboo shook his head.

“Well, can I look through your copy of Spotlight then? Maybe I’ll recognise her.”

“That’s for demons, not spirits. There’s about a billion spirits, there’s no book for them.”

“Maybe she was a demon, then,” Howard said slowly, through clenched teeth.

“Demons don’t grant wishes.”

Howard sat back in his chair heavily, head thunking against the cushions, and closed his eyes. Impossible, the whole thing was impossible. “I want it to stop. You hear me? I don’t want it any more!”

“Bollo can help.”

He opened his eyes to see Bollo looming over him, arms folded.

“You’re not going to lay into him again, are you?” Naboo held out a warning finger.

“Naboo under spell, he can’t help. But Bollo can help. Bollo will research for you, see what he can find out.” He turned to leave the room.

“Thanks, Bollo,” Howard called after him.

Bollo shot him a look. “Not doing it for you.”

[nextpage title=”Chapter Two”]

Chapter Two

The man at the zookeepers’ door was a little older than Howard, dressed smartly, holding a briefcase. He looked from Howard to the little piece of card he was holding. “Are you Mr Howard Moon?”

“Look mate, I’m sorry, I don’t really have time for autographs today.”

The man laughed. “No, you misunderstand me. My name’s Whittaker. I’m looking for the jazz musician Howard Moon.”

Howard pulled the door open wide and studied him carefully. “John Whittaker? Head of Bluetone Records?”

“The very same.” Mr Whittaker tipped his hat. “Might I come in?”

“Sure! Absolutely!” Howard closed the door behind him, breathing heavily. “Would you like a cup of something? Tea, coffee? Or, or, something a little stronger…we’ve got whiskey, vodka, uh, I think there’s some creme de menthe lying around from last Christmas…shit, sorry, if I’d known you were coming I’d have prepared properly.” Great, I just said ‘shit’ to the most influential jazz record producer of the twenty-first century.

Mr Whittaker turned down all offers with a wave of his hand, and made himself comfortable at the little table, looking around his surroundings in fairly well disguised disgust.

Howard hovered next to the other chair, hands fluttering nervously. “So, what brings you down here? Down to my neck of the woods, haha?”

Mr Whittaker rooted around in his pocket for a bit, and came up with a battered and dusty demo tape. ‘HOWARD TJ MOON’ was written on the label. “This.”

Howard stared at it in wonder. It had been two years since he’d recorded some of his trumpet playing and sent it off to Bluetone Records, and all he’d got back was a curt letter saying how they appreciated his time and would be in contact as soon as possible. Nothing since.

“We can’t understand how we overlooked it,” Mr Whittaker was saying. “But one of our assistants stumbled across it last week, gave it a listen, and…well, of course, true talent is never hard to recognise.”

“Talent?” said Howard in wonder.

“Who are you signed with at the moment?” Mr Whittaker asked, pulling out a notepad and clicking his pen.

“I’m…not.”

“Come now, Mr Moon, we have a very skilled legal department. I assure you they’ll find a way to break whatever record contract you’re in.”

Howard shook his head dumbly. “I’m not in any record contract. I haven’t played in a long time.” He looked around the room in fear. “I’m…I’m not even sure where my trumpet is.”

“Amazing,” Mr Whittaker said, shaking his head. “You couldn’t make it up, no one would believe it.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and wrote something on the back. “Mr Moon, you are exactly the sort of new talent Bluetone Records needs. I am very, very interested in signing you to our label. I mean, I see big things ahead for you. Albums, concerts, a world tour. You could be the greatest jazz musician of our time.”

He passed Howard the business card, and he flipped it over to see a telephone number scribbled on the back.

He looked at Howard over his glasses. “There’s my work number and my home number…my personal number…on there. Please, call me, make an appointment. Any time you like.”

Howard could do nothing but nod as Mr Whittaker said his goodbyes, tipped his hat and left. He held the card up to his eyes with a trembling hand, waiting for it to disappear or evaporate or something equally fitting. But it didn’t.

“…so this concert, my debut concert, it’s tomorrow night, okay?”

Vince nodded, slumped on the sofa, looking at his nails.

“I won’t be back to look after you, not ‘til late. But I’ve put a meal in the fridge, and I’ve told Naboo to look in on you during the night. I’ll be back some time in the morning.” Howard put a hand out and tipped Vince’s head towards his, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Yes? You understand?”

“I’m not coming with you then?” Vince said, his bottom lip trembling.

Howard sighed. “It’s not really your sort of scene. And I don’t think you’d be up to it, not in your condition.” He thought of Vince in his tattered and torn clothing, rubbing shoulders with celebrities and record executives. Hanging off his arm while he tried to make conversation with his jazz heroes.

“Well, if you don’t want me to, then sure, I don’t want to come,” Vince mumbled into his collar. “I just…I like watching you play.”

Howard rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Look Vince, I’d love you to come, but it’s just not the right time, yeah? You’d only fall asleep anyway. Best you stay here.”

There was a knock at the door, and Howard got up to answer it gratefully.

“…just thought I could be there, support you, you know…”

“Vince,” Howard turned at the door, cutting him off with a decisive gesture. “No. And that’s an end to it. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

“…sorry.”

He opened the door to reveal Bollo standing there, clutching an immensely heavy and dusty book. He froze, swallowing. “B-Bollo…hi.”

“I found it!” Bollo’s eyes shined in triumph, and he pushed past Howard, dumping the book on the table with a bang that made Vince jump out of his seat.

“Found what? Look, Bollo, I don’t really have time, I want to do a bit of practising, and I’ve got to put Vince to bed, and…” Howard trailed off as Bollo opened the book, revealing a crude line drawing of the Blue Girl. It was only in pencil, black and white, but that face…that death’s head barely hidden under taut skin, it was definitely her. It reminded him of Vince.

“Bollo found cure. It easy, really.” Bollo pointed to the relevant passage in the text. “See, everyone love Howard, everyone think Howard so good. Howard has to prove he not good, that he is same old boring freak has always been.”

“Oi,” Vince said quietly. Howard jumped, not having realised that he’d got up from the sofa to stand behind him, peering over his shoulder.

Bollo rolled his eyes, but continued. “Howard must embarrass himself in worst way possible. Nothing too small, because people will just decide is genius and spell will not be broken. But something so awful, terrible, and humiliating, that everyone will see through spell and see who Howard really is.”

Howard swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Uh, any ideas?”

Bollo flicked through the pages. “Only been done once. Man in seventeen hundreds, managed to break spell by faking murder of his baby boy.” There was a horrific painting of a man clutching a child covered in blood, in front of a large crowd. “Had to be done in public, in front of lots of people. And his brother – man that he steal life from – had to be there too. Had to see it.”

“That’s nasty,” Vince said, pulling the book closer. Howard smacked his hand, and closed the book with a thump.

“Thanks Bollo. Really. I’ll get right on that, soon as I’ve had a little think.” Howard nudged the book towards Bollo, who narrowed his eyes.

“You do still want to break spell, yes?”

Howard rubbed his hands together, looking down at them. “Yeah! You know, eventually. I mean, my music career’s just starting to take off, and I’ve got this concert and everything, but after that…sure. After that, I’ll-” The rest of his words were cut off by Bollo’s roar as he ran at Howard, shoving him into the wall and closing his hands around his neck.

“Maybe…Bollo…kill Howard,” he grunted. “Maybe that break spell, free Vince.”

“Stop it!” Vince yelled, beating at Bollo’s back with his fists. He pulled at his arms, pushing them out of the way, trying to put himself between Bollo and Howard.

Howard started to see stars.

Vince ran to the kitchenette, opening drawers hurriedly, and came back clutching the bread knife. He held it to Bollo’s neck. “Put him down. I’ll…I’ll do it. I swear.”

Bollo looked from Howard, turning an impressive shade of blue, to the conviction in Vince’s eyes. He let Howard go, and he sank to the floor. Vince dropped the knife and held him close, shielding him from his attacker.

Bollo held up a hand like he wanted to say something, but Vince just screamed “Get out!”. He left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Howard coughed as Vince gripped him tightly, muttering random niceties into his ear and kissing his head. “It’s okay, Howard, it’s fine, you’re okay, I won’t let him hurt you, you’re fine.”

Vince asleep was the worst. He looked dead. Not moving, barely breathing, deathly pale and small, wrapped up in his pyjamas under about fifteen blankets, curled over on his side. It was easy to imagine that Howard had actually killed him, had sucked all the life out of him for his own purposes and left him an empty husk. He hated it, sitting there on the bed stroking his hair, hated watching him, but he couldn’t pull himself away. Howard had always had a fairly healthy sense of self-punishment.

The bedroom door creaking made him turn around, and he flinched, thinking it was Bollo come back for round two, when Vince couldn’t protect him.

It was the least likely person in the world.

“Hello, Howard,” said Dixon Bainbridge, grinning like a loon. “How’s things?”

Howard got up, putting himself between Vince and Bainbridge. Although, since the spell had kicked in, he’d found he was the one getting semi-molested and not Vince. Fossil alone had tried to put his hand inside Howard’s trousers no less than twice.

“What are you doing here, Bainbridge?”

“Why, I came to congratulate you, of course.” He sat down in Vince’s little armchair, groaning as he did so. “Sit down, you oaf.”

It had been so long since anyone (except the animals) had spoken to Howard without complete and utter respect, that he obeyed Bainbridge purely out of shock.

“Congratulate me?” he said warily. “For what? The concert?”

“Ah yes, I have tickets for that.” Bainbridge pulled out a pipe and began stuffing it with tobacco, and Howard looked at Vince nervously, but figured that he wouldn’t be roused by anything for the next twelve hours.

“But no,” Bainbridge continued, “I’ve come to congratulate you for successfully bringing off the spell.”

Howard froze, mouth open. “The what?”

“Stealing Vince Noir’s luck, of course. Most excellently done.” Bainbridge struck a match off Vince’s poster of David Bowie and puffed away, sly eyes hidden momentarily behind a cloud of smoke.

“How…how do you know about that?”

“Oh, come on, Howard. You’re slightly more intelligent now, surely?” Bainbridge sighed. “I’m an immensely attractive and successful man with an idiot for a sidekick. How do you think I know?”

Howard gaped, the pieces suddenly falling into place. “You did the spell? On Fossil?”

“That’s right,” Bainbridge smirked. “When I met Fossil – or Professor Fossil, as he was then – I was a spotty oik of an undergraduate, and he was the world’s foremost expert in neurosurgery. Brilliant mind, brilliant wit, loved by all who knew him.” Bainbridge blew a smoke ring, watching Howard through it smugly. “I had to take a piece of that.”

“A professor? Fossil?”

“Hard to believe, I know. And it’s been so long now since his little ‘breakdown’ that I doubt anyone in Oxford remembers him.”

“Oxford?” Howard choked, whether on the idea of Fossil as an actual human being or on Bainbridge’s smoke, he wasn’t sure.

“That’s right.” Bainbridge leaned back, musing. “I was just like you, a nonentity with no talent, nothing to his name. And Herself appeared to me in my dingy little bedsit, offered me a chance to have everything I’d ever wanted, and I took it. Just like you did.”

Howard stared at the floor. “What do you want? Are you going to blackmail me?”

“Good heavens, no!” Bainbridge let out a short barking laugh. “No, I’ve come to give you some advice, Howard. To admit you into the illustrious society of those who have taken the same path.”

“I don’t need your advice.”

“I think you do.” Bainbridge leaned forward. “Your young friend, for example. You need to take excellent care of him.”

Howard looked at Vince quickly, huddled under the sheets. “He’s not going to die, is he? He’s so sick, all the time.”

“Well, of course, the spell affects different people in different ways. You can see what it did to Fossil.” He sighed. “Personally, I’d rather have him a little more like Noir. Fossil’s so full of energy, I spend half my life worrying what he’s going to do next.” He looked around Vince’s bedroom. “I only set this zoo up as a way of keeping him occupied, keeping him in one place. You see, if anything happens to your friend, if he should be killed somehow, you’ll find yourself exactly as you were before. Noir will be your most important possession in the long years ahead.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to Vince!” Howard snapped.

Bainbridge tipped his head to one side. “No, you do appear to have been rather fortunate in that respect. Some subjects end up uncontrollable; in extreme cases, violent. Their owners have to have them imprisoned, or incarcerated in an asylum, and that is so prone to difficulties.”

“I’d never do that to Vince.”

“Yes, you can simply leave him asleep most of the day. How lucky.” Bainbridge tapped the stem of the pipe against his lips. “I can provide you with a spare cage, if you like.”

“What?”

“Oh, we’d fit it with a bed, and give him food and water. But he wouldn’t be able to wander off, say…under a bus, or off a tall building.”

Howard got to his feet, feeling sick. “How…how can you…”

Bainbridge held up one hand placatingly. “He’d be perfectly happy, I assure you. I could have Fossil give him a wash with a hose every now and then, maybe fit a tyre swing or something…and if he remembers how to read and write, he could send you letters, as and when you-”

Howard heaved open Vince’s door, shaking with rage. “Get out. Get out right now.”

Bainbridge got to his feet, watching Howard curiously. Then something clicked, and he smirked. “But of course – you don’t trust me. Very wise. I wouldn’t trust me either. I mean, I could simply give the order for Fossil to kill your little friend, and you’d be back where you started.” He emptied his pipe on Vince’s dressing table. “You don’t have to worry, Howard, I’m simply trying to help. But I respect your precautions.”

He put his hands in his pockets, looking Howard up and down. “There’s no need to feel uncomfortable about all this. You were a snivelling nobody, with nothing to work with. You took the only path open to you – to take something from someone else.” He stroked his silver moustache. “Fossil, Noir…they were both accidents of nature. They didn’t earn their abilities, they simply had them. Fossil had lived a charmed life for thirty-two years when I met him, wasn’t that long enough? Wasn’t it my turn?”

“We’re nothing alike,” Howard spat, still holding on to the door.

Bainbridge looked from Howard to Vince, and smirked obscenely. “There are plenty of pretty young men out in the world who will only be too happy to help you get over Miss Noir. I myself am holding a party at my house in Monaco next week, there should be a great deal of…talent there.” He pulled a silk-edged invitation out of his pocket and rested it on Vince’s dressing table. “Until then, Howard.”

He left, humming some military tune to himself, and Howard slammed the door closed, shaking like a leaf. He walked over to the bed and climbed in next to Vince, huddling up next to him, but still feeling icy cold.

See Howard? I made the office all nicey nice for ya, cause I knew you’d be coming back today and I thought –

Shut up, Noir.

Yessir. Shutting up.

God, you make me sick. What is this, pot pourri? I hate that stuff.

Yeah, uh, I hate it too, Howard. I hate it so goddamn much.

You really hate it?

Abso-frickin-lutely!

Eat it for me, Noir.

…What?

You heard. If you hate it so bad, why don’t you finish off that bowl?

Haha, you’re real funny Howard. I love your sense of humour.

I’m not joking, dickbrain. Eat that bowl of pot pourri. Now.

But…but why?

Because I say so. Do you need another reason?

No.

Well, I’ll give you one anyway. Your mouth fucking stinks. All that shit you eat all day, junk food, sweets, I’m sick of it. I’m not letting that mouth anywhere near my cock until you’ve cleaned it up a bit. Made it smell nice.

I don’t get to give you mouth fun until I eat the dry leaves, Howard?

That’s right, bitch. Get eating.

Yes sir.

The dressing room was huge. Well, so was the theatre, actually. And sold out, Mr Whittaker had told him that as soon as he arrived. Completely full, they’d even printed up some half-price tickets to let people stand at the back, and they’d gone within an hour of going on sale.

He could hear the distant buzz of excitement in the auditorium above, soft footsteps of all the jazz world’s finest, and London’s glitterati, taking their seats. Waiting for him.

“You look great, Howard.”

He met Vince’s eyes in the mirror, and smiled. “Thanks, Vince.”

“I’m glad you let me come along. I didn’t want to miss this.” Vince sneezed, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his new tuxedo, and Howard winced, but said nothing.

“Well, I want you to see this. I want you to see everything. I’ve got you a nice little front row seat, and there’ll be someone around if you want a drink or something to eat, yeah?”

Vince nodded. “I remember.” He yawned, taking a seat on the little sofa the theatre had provided.

Howard span round in his chair and watched him intently. “How you doing? You okay? Not too tired?”

Vince shrugged. “No more than usual.”

“Well, I need you to stay awake for this, Vince. What I’m going to do…I need you to see it.”

Vince nodded decisively. “I’ll stay awake, sure. If I feel myself slipping I’ll just…” He dug his nails into his thigh viciously, through the fabric of his trousers.

Howard got up and took his hand, pulling it away. “Don’t do that, please. Just…make an effort.”

“Sorry Howard.” Vince looked down at Howard’s neck, and furrowed his brow. “Your tie’s all crooked. Let me fix it for you.”

“You don’t have t-” But Vince’s hands were already around his neck, skidding lightly over the bruises Bollo had left the day before.

He stared at a point just to Vince’s left, ignoring his breath on his face, his touch on his neck and against his chin.

“Howard.”

“Vince?”

“I need to tell you something.” Vince rooted around in his pockets with a stricken expression. “Shit…I’ve lost it.”

“What? What do you need?”

Vince bit his lip. “Well, I want to tell you something, but I know I’ll get all flustered and muck it up, so I wrote it down, but I can’t find it. I put it in my pocket, I swear, but I’ve lost it!” He muttered “stupid, stupid” under his breath.

Howard pulled his chair over, sat in front of Vince. “Well, just tell me. I don’t mind if you get mixed up.”

Vince shook his head. “I’ll have a look for it, and tell you after your performance.”

“You…you might not get a chance.”

Vince’s head sprang up and he looked into Howard’s eyes nervously.

“Um, I mean…there’ll be a lot of people around. I don’t know how much time I’ll be able to spend with you.”

“Oh, right, of course. Sorry.” Vince flexed his fingers a couple of times, psyching himself up for whatever it was, and Howard leaned back, trying to make his face as reassuring as possible.

“Well. I know…you must get this a lot, right? You must get people saying it all the time, and it’s stupid to think that just, because…we’ve been friends a long time, that you might…I mean, you take care of me, but I shouldn’t confuse your natural kindness for anything…now that I think about it, it’s stupid and-”

“Vince.”

“Right, yeah.” Vince rubbed his hands together nervously. “What I’m trying to say, is. We’ve got a lot closer in these past few months, right? And I feel…what I feel, is…I love you. In a man-on-man sort of way.”

Howard closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. This must be the spell, sensing he was going to get rid of it, offering him things. He felt the Blue Girl in the back of his mind, grinning.

“Sorry Howard. I knew I shouldn’t have told you before you went on,” Vince said quietly, and Howard pulled his hands away from his face.

“What? No, Vince…I…shit.”

“It’s alright,” he said with a little smile. “You don’t have to say anything. I’ll go get into my seat.”

Howard caught his sleeve, and pulled him back down. “I…I like you too. Not love, not really, but, sort of, pre-love. Like, something to give a chance, you know?”

“Not really.”

Howard gripped him by the shoulders. “Listen. I have to do something during my performance, something big, and you’re not going to like it.”

Vince opened his mouth, probably to say something along the lines of ‘I like everything you do, Howard’, but Howard kept on talking.

“In fact, you’re going to hate me, for a long time. And I might have to go away somewhere people won’t find me, because they’re all going to hate me. But…” He bit his lip. “Remember. Remember that you said you loved me, and I said…what I said, but I didn’t take advantage of you. And then, if you still feel the same way, I swear, there will just be no end to the fun we’ll have.”

He grinned, crazy and wild, and Vince, confused, could only smile back. “There’ll be picnics in the park, and ice cream, and summer, and long walks in the rain, lots and lots of sex, lazy Sunday mornings and pub lunches, and I’ll do anything I can to make you happy. But not now. Not til after.”

He let go, getting to his feet and moving over to his mirror, checking his appearance one last time. There was a knock at the door, and an assistant walked in, bowed at them both.

“I’ve come to escort Mr Noir to his seat, sir.”

“Yeah, hang on,” Vince said, watching Howard’s turned back carefully.

“Take good care of him,” Howard said. “Whatever he wants, anything at all, he gets. I mean it. If I hear anything I don’t like, if I hear that he wasn’t completely satisfied, I’ll break the record contract with your company. Just like that.”

The assistant swallowed a couple of times, then bowed low. “Mr Noir?” he said in a voice reeking of deference.

“Hang on!” Vince said in the loudest voice Howard had heard from him in weeks. “Howard, this thing you’re going to do. Will…is it going to hurt?”

Howard blinked at him, mouth open. “Yes.”

He could hear the audience just beyond the curtain, restless, and strained to pick out Vince’s voice from the mix, but couldn’t. Perhaps he wasn’t talking to anyone. Perhaps all the hoi polloi were shunning him. Taking care of Vince had become second nature to him, and he wasn’t sure exactly how they were going to get along after all of this.

Still, that was the least of his problems. Vince wasn’t going to speak to him ever again.

“Ready, Howard?” Bollo asked him, tapping his camcorder to check the picture.

“Yeah,” Howard said. “No. I think I’m going to throw up again.”

“Aye, well it’s no’ any better for me either, ye daft pillock,” came a voice from the cage Howard carried under his arm. “An’ don’t be gettin’ any funny ideas about this, aye? Strictly business. Strictly for the boy.”

“For Vince,” Howard agreed.

“No time like present,” Bollo said to him, stepping back into the wings and signalling for the stagehands to get ready to lift the curtain.

Howard reached down and unlocked the cage, lifting Jack Cooper out and holding him eye to eye. “Ready?”

“I’ll never be ready,” Jack muttered. “But time’s right, aye?”

Bollo gave the signal. The curtain rose.

In other news, jazz musician Howard Moon is currently in police custody after shocking audiences during his debut performance by having sexual intercourse with a fox. Patrons of the Hammersmith Apollo were stunned when the curtain opened on Mr Moon not playing the trumpet, as they expected, but instead with his trousers around his ankles and the unfortunate animal pressed to his nether regions. Mr Moon was heard calling out such epithets as ‘who’s your zookeeper’ and ‘so this is the way to Dundee’.

The incident is particularly worrying because Mr Moon previously held a position at one of London’s lesser known zoos, the Zooniverse, where he had unrestricted access to their full complement of animals. The Zooniverse has been forced to close temporarily after demonstrations by animal rights activists. The RSPCA have issued a statement saying that they are investigating the matter, and the animals have all been taken into care.

Mr Moon’s record company, Bluetone Records, have declined to comment on the incident, but his previous employer, Zooniverse manager Mr Robert Fossil, did issue a statement saying that “although Moon is a freakish bitch with a taste for perversion, Jack Cooper [the fox in question] is a known tease, leading innocent men into depravity with his deep brown eyes and a flick of his fluffy tail.”

Mr Fossil has also been taken into custody.

The custody sergeant barely raised his head when Naboo and Bollo walked through the double doors, busy with some paperwork on his desk. The police station was a hive of activity, constables rushing back and forth, telephones ringing, announcements being made over radios. Distantly, the baying mob could be heard screaming behind a police cordon, calling for Howard to be brought outside.

Naboo rang the little bell, hardly tall enough to see over the desk, and Bollo adopted a position of quiet menace.

“If you want to make a complaint against Mr Moon,” the sergeant said in a harassed tone of voice, “all the appropriate forms are out the front.”

“I don’t want to complain,” Naboo said quietly.

The custody sergeant – whose badge read ‘Tyler’ – looked up finally, then rolled his eyes when he saw Bollo. “Okay, he touched your monkey, right? I told you, we’re processing all the allegations as quickly as we can. Go out the front, write it all down, and someone will contact you in the next couple of days.”

“We want you to let Howard go.”

Sergeant Tyler sighed. “The Inter-Species Intercourse Society? One of your lads has already been round, and Moon didn’t want to see him.”

“We’re not from ISIS.” Naboo took off his turban, his hair falling into his face as he rooted around inside it for something. “We’ve got evidence that can clear his name.”

“Oh yeah? You’ve got evidence that will somehow quash the eyewitness testimony of over a thousand people?”

Naboo held up a camcorder, resting it on the desk and swivelling the viewscreen so it faced the custody sergeant, then hit the play button.

Sergeant Tyler shook his head. “Unless he pulled some kind of hypnosis act, I really don’t-”

“Hi,” said a tinny little voice, and Tyler’s eyes flicked to the viewscreen. “My name is Howard TJ Moon, and this is my first piece of performance art.”

He laughed out loud. “Yeah, whatever. I don’t think that one’s going to wash with the magistrate in the morning.”

“As you can see,” Howard continued, on the playback, “I have one flesh-coloured jockstrap, and one live fox. Let’s get this over with.” The hum of the audience got louder as Howard walked out on stage, hidden behind the curtain, and unzipped his trousers.

“If you fast forward to the two minutes forty mark, where Bollo finally manages to find the zoom button, you’ll see that Jack Cooper is at least an inch away from Howard’s…from Howard,” Naboo pointed out helpfully, leaning on the counter.

Sergeant Tyler’s eye started to twitch. “Breach of the peace.”

“Onstage? You’ll be arresting the Rocky Horror show the night before, then?”

“Wasting police time?”

Naboo just looked at him. “He’ll be wasting a lot less of your time if you release him into my custody now.”

Tyler nodded at the doors to the station, the hate-filled shouts coming from outside. “You’re going to get him through all that, are you?”

“We have our ways.”

Bollo cracked his knuckles loudly.

Tyler bit his lip, a desperate look in his eye. He made a grab for the camera, face falling when Naboo made no move to stop him. “I don’t suppose this is the only copy?”

Naboo grinned. “Released to all major news networks an hour ago, up on the internet any minute now.”

Tyler put the camcorder down with a clatter. “Wait here,” he muttered. “I’ll bring him out.”

Vince was having trouble dealing with all this new information. He knew Howard was the most perfect and amazing creature alive, and yet there were all these images in his head of Howard as a dishevelled loser, of him being the popular one. His head felt like it was going to explode, how could both things be true? How could Howard have done that to Jack?

Vince had no idea how he’d managed to get back to the Zooniverse, slumped on the floor in Howard’s room, staring at all his favourite clothes hanging up in Howard’s wardrobe. Stretched out of shape. He had no idea how much time had passed since the concert, sitting there, head pounding.

He was startled by the sound of the front door slamming. Hastily he wiped the tears from his cheeks, brushed down his two-sizes-too-big tuxedo and ran his hands through the rats’ nest that was his hair. He pulled at the wall to get to his feet, surprised at how weak he’d become, his knees shaking uncontrollably.

Someone walked through the door to Howard’s room, and he got ready to shout, but it wasn’t Howard. It was Naboo.

“Wow.” Naboo’s mouth was open slightly, a sure sign he was overwhelmed with emotion. He swallowed, taking in Vince’s appearance. “Are you okay?”

“Where’s Howard?”

Naboo looked away, crossing the room and pulling out a battered leather suitcase from under Howard’s bed. He started filling it with clothes, tactfully avoiding the wardrobe filled with Vince’s things and heading instead to the chest of drawers with Howard’s usual outfits inside.

“Naboo? Where’s Howard?” Vince felt sick suddenly, remembering the audience rushing the stage, Howard disappearing beneath a crowd of people out for blood. “He is alright, isn’t he?”

Naboo piled a handful of Howard’s greying underwear into the case, wrinkling his nose. “He has to go away for a while, Vince.”

“What? No!” Vince blocked Naboo’s path, tugging on his sleeve. “Look what he did to me, Naboo! I need to talk to him, I need him to tell me why he did this to me!”

Naboo regarded him blankly. “Howard Moon is a liar and a freak.”

“No he’s not! Shut up!” The words left his lips before he even knew he’d said them. Naboo raised an eyebrow, and looked down at Vince’s hand painfully tight on his arm, knuckles white. Vince let go hastily, sitting down on the bed.

Naboo continued filling the case, mind-blinding polyester shirts and corduroy trousers. “Ending a spell isn’t like switching off a lightbulb, Vince. It’s going to take a while before you can see Howard without worshipping him.”

“I don’t worship him.” Vince stared at his hands, worried what they were going to do next. “I hate him.”

“Then you won’t mind not seeing him for a bit.” Naboo threw a couple of books and CDs in at random, all Howard’s possessions barely filling the suitcase halfway.

“How long?”

“Six months? A year?” Naboo shrugged. “This is powerful stuff, it’s difficult to say. The Board of Shamen is going to find him a safehouse somewhere for a bit, another life. Like Witness Protection.” He looked around the room, and threw in Howard’s photo album, closing the case with a soft click.

Vince followed Naboo out of the room and into the lounge. “What’s going to happen to me?”

Naboo opened the front door, and put the suitcase out on the step. “Me and Bollo’ll look after you,” he said to Vince, patting him on the arm. “Stay in here.” He closed the door behind him, and Vince heard it lock, so used to obeying orders now that he didn’t even think to look for his keys.

He could hear Naboo and Bollo talking outside, and he peered through the grimy little window in the kitchenette. It was pitch black, but he could just make out the silhouettes of two men and a gorilla, one of the men shaking out a piece of cloth that could only be a magic carpet.

There was a sudden crash, and the shouting in the distance got louder. The activists outside must have broken through the gate. Torches could be seen approaching in the distance. One of them illuminated Howard’s face, and he put his fingers up to shield his eyes.

Vince couldn’t breathe. Howard, his Howard, had a black eye and a bandage around his neck. He looked so much smaller, and so afraid.

Vince banged on the window as hard as he could, desperate to break through. “Howard!” he screamed.

Howard turned towards him, eyes wide, and the three figures rose into the air on Naboo’s magic carpet. Bollo pulled him down by his arm as the baying mob drew closer, and his face was lost from view.

Vince grabbed the iron off the counter and hurled it at the window, shattering the glass. “Howard!” he called out, scratching his arms to pieces as he tried to climb through. “Don’t leave me here!”

The carpet soared into the distance. The screaming mob turned their attention to the cages, ripping them apart and freeing the animals inside, releasing them into the zoo.

Vince strolled through the Brighton Lanes, occasionally glancing at an address scrawled on the back of his hand.

The sun was, if not actually shining, then still making its presence felt from behind the heavy cloud. Despite the day being overcast, everything was bright and warm, and it felt just like a summer’s day. People were sitting outside at cafes, eating cream teas and talking about how sick they’d been after going on the rides at the pier.

Vince pressed himself against the wall to let someone pass by in the crowded and narrow streets, and nodded to his third transsexual of the day. He was starting to understand why he blended in a little better here than in London.

He turned a corner to be faced with a dead end, and mentally went over the instructions Naboo had given him, looking around for a little green door. Someone had painted a huge mural on the left wall, and he eventually realised that it was a clever disguise – a real door disguised as a painted one. He pushed at it with his boot, and it swung open silently, revealing stairs leading up.

He could hear voices saying goodbye as he climbed the stairs, and stopped on the corner to let an elderly woman pass by, dressed in a shawl and an abundance of beads, smelling of incense.

The upstairs room was the bookshop he had been looking for – well, either that or a badly looked after library. It was filled with books, on shelves, on tables, stacked haphazardly in piles that teetered as Vince edged past them. Despite the sunshine outside, the room was dimly lit by some smoking candles and one huge grimy window at the far end.

Most of the light was blocked by a desk covered in papers – a rusting cash register visible behind a pile of them – and by the man who sat at it, engrossed in a old leather-bound hardback.

Vince hovered behind one of the tall bookcases, his heart pounding. Howard looked so different. His moustache and stubble were gone, a series of small nicks around his jawline evidence that he needed to buy a sharper razor. His hair was longer, a lot longer, tied back into a hippie-ish ponytail, a couple of strands floating free around his head, like he was underwater. His clothes were basically the same, greys and browns and black, camouflage wear.

But if you knew Howard as well as Vince did, the biggest change was visible in his face. He looked so much older. He’d surely grown an extra couple of crow’s feet. There was a tilt to his nose that hadn’t been there before, a broken nose that had healed oddly, tipping his face a little to the left. He was a little more tanned, a little more scarred.

He looked tired.

Vince took a step out into the open, hoping that Howard would see him and spare him having to announce himself, but Howard’s eyes never left the pages in front of him. Vince walked right up to the desk without Howard noticing him, and when he finally did he merely glanced at him.

“I don’t have a catalogue,” he said gruffly. “You’ll have to browse.”

“Have you got anything on zookeeping?” Vince said lightly, intending it to be a joke, but Howard looked up in fear, dropping his book forgotten on the desk.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, “please don’t hu-” He stopped, mouth open, and Vince waggled his fingers a little.

“Hi Howard.”

Howard blinked, pale. “What are you doing here?”

Vince ignored the quips that leapt to mind, keeping his voice neutral. “Looking for you.”

“Right, yeah, of course.” Howard ran a hand over his head, tugging a little at his ponytail, tightening it up. “Um. Do you want a cup of tea?”

Vince shoved his hands in his pockets. “That sounds great.”

Howard got to his feet, heavy-duty leather boots clumping against the floorboards and raising small clouds of dust. “I’ll just put the sign up.” He waved a piece of paper saying ‘Closed 4 Lunch’.

Vince stood right back against the bookshelves to let Howard pass, a full foot of space between them, and listened to him leave. He knew by the scampering sound of his footsteps that he was nervous, scared even, and it was a completely new feeling for him to be in control like this. That is, of the two of them, he’d always had a little more power over Howard than Howard ever had over him. But this was the first time that Howard had known it.

He nudged the edge of the book Howard had been reading, turning it so he could read the title. ‘Mrs Beeton’s Cooking’. Well, at least it wasn’t ‘Crime and Punishment’.

“Um,” said Howard behind him, and Vince turned, heart pounding. “I’m…you know. Cooking for myself now.”

“Right, yeah.”

Howard wrinkled his nose, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m shit at it.”

Vince grinned despite himself, forcing his face back into a serious expression.

“I can do tea, though.” Howard edged past him again, and Vince expected him to open a door to a kitchen, but instead he got down on his hands and knees and fiddled with something behind the desk. Vince stood on tiptoes to see what it was, and saw an electric kettle, and a tray with tea things on it.

He took a step back as Howard stood up suddenly, a mug in his hand. “This one’s dirty. Would you mind…there’s a little bathroom just at the back there…that way I can go get the milk?” He held out the mug, biting his lip, like Vince might take it from him and hurl it in his face. But he didn’t. He made sure their fingers didn’t touch, but he took the mug and headed in the direction that Howard had pointed out, finding a door the same colour as the wall, hidden behind yet another bookcase.

The toilet looked like it had been built during the Victorian age, and Vince got a little dizzy feeling of unintentional time travel before he spotted the bottle of Toilet Duck on the floor. He pulled the door closed behind him and took a deep breath. The mug wasn’t that dirty, a little splash of water fixed it alright, but he took his time checking his reflection in the tarnished mirror. Back to his old self – no one who didn’t know about the spell would have suspected he’d ever been ill.

There was a door banging, and a loud voice called out, “Started without me, eh? You’ll get sacked if you keep this up.” A loud male voice.

Vince rested the mug in the sink as softly as possible, and pressed his ear to the door, thanking Bowie that the Victorians didn’t believe in soundproofing.

He heard Howard shushing the visitor hastily, and his suspicion was immediately aroused. A year, after all. A lot could happen in a year.

“I got tomato with mozzarella ball things in it, I thought it was quite nice, but then I remembered you have that thing about cheese mixed with liquids, so I bought this chicken pie thing. It’s nice, it’s got pastry over the top of the cup.” The voice was fairly young, as far as he could tell, and southern. And entirely too familiar.

“Gary, look, you have to go.”

“You like soup, Howard.”

“No, it’s – I’ve got someone here.” Then there was a pause which must be Howard pointing at the toilet door, and Vince decided that would be the best time to flush the toilet loudly and stroll out, mug in one hand.

‘Gary’ was a slim twenty-something dressed in a striped rugby shirt and jeans, his head shaved and his eyebrow pierced. He was clutching two paper cups and eyeing Vince suspiciously..

Howard was standing far too close, biting his thumbnail and looking from one to the other. “Um. This is Vince Noir, he’s an old friend of mine.”

Vince navigated the books as calmly as he could, making sure he didn’t knock anything over. He couldn’t work out whether to be the person introduced, or the person introduced to, was more friendly – whether Howard was placing him over Gary or vice versa.

“And Vince, this is Gary. He’s a…new friend of mine.” Howard did a little half-laugh thing that no one joined in with. “Um, Gar’, we sort of need some time alone. You don’t mind, do you?”

Gary turned to Howard, effectively cutting Vince out of the conversation, and muttered, “This isn’t an ‘art’ thing, is it? Because you just have to say.” He gave Howard a significant look.

Howard hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. “No, it’s fine. We need to catch up. I’ll call you tonight, right?”

Gary sighed. “I’ll take these to the cafe, I’m sure I can find someone hungry enough to want to eat with me.” He turned to Vince and flashed him the most fake smile he’d ever seen. “Nice to meet you, Vince.”

“Likewise,” Vince muttered as Gary left, the sound of his footsteps on the stairs dying away. He glared at Howard, hands on hips. “Who – the fuck – was that?”

Howard put his hands up, one holding a half-full plastic container of milk. “Just a friend, Vince. I swear.”

“A gay friend.”

Howard raised his eyebrows. “This is Brighton.”

Vince conceded this point, ducking his head and kicking at the floorboards. The kettle clicked off suddenly, and Howard headed back to his desk.

Vince followed him, putting the washed mug down on the table and leaving a little ring of moisture on a copy of ‘Mythycall Beastes’. “You’re not sleeping with him then?”

Howard yelped as he poured boiling water onto his wrist. “The…hell? No! Of course not! He’s just a friend, Jesus…” He made two cups of tea hastily, muttering to himself and shaking his head. “God, I thought we were going to talk about…I’m not seeing anyone.”

Vince left his cup of tea where it was for the moment, arms folded. “Don’t you want to know if I’m seeing anyone?”

Howard looked up instantly. “Are you?”

Vince waited for a moment before answering, taking in Howard’s expression. “No.”

Howard stood up straighter, blowing on his tea. “Good.” His voice was firm, nothing like the nerves from earlier.

“What was all that ‘art’ stuff about?”

Howard waved a hand dismissively. “Just a sort of code. Gary knows I’ve had trouble in the past because of the concert, but I didn’t want him to keep asking me if I was getting hassled because of having sex with a fox, so ‘art’ is a sort of codeword. Performance art, you know.”

Vince leaned against a bookcase. “Have you? Had trouble, I mean.”

Howard shrugged, brushing his nose slightly with his knuckle, a gesture that did not go unnoticed. “Well, I didn’t start off in Brighton. I was in Manchester for a few months, but someone found out who I was, and…I had to leave.” His eyes got a little distant. “Even after the video went out on the news, most people still believe that I’m guilty, you know. They can get really angry about it.” He blinked, staring down at his tea. “But it’s alright now, yeah. I’ve got a job here, selling magic books on behalf of the Board, I’ve got a tiny flat, a small group of mates, it’s…yeah. It’s nice.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a great little life for yourself.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Howard said softly. “Or, I don’t know. Would you rather that I was doing okay or that I wasn’t?”

The question took Vince off-guard, Howard’s earnest tone – eager to abide by Vince’s wishes, to take his orders. He chose to ignore it, rattled slightly. “Um, the Zooniverse closed down. Don’t know if you knew that.”

“I heard.”

Vince picked at his nail polish. “And I’m staying with Naboo and Bollo, they’ve been really nice. Haven’t asked for rent or anything.”

“You’re not working?”

Vince glared at him, and Howard backpedalled hastily. “Um, not that I mean…I just wondered what you were doing with your time, that’s all.”

“Well, that’s part of why I’m here.” Vince took a little breath, trying to get his tale in the right order. “I’ve been looking for the other people under the spell. You know Fossil and Bainbridge went missing soon after Fossil was released from custody…and I’ve been following their trail. I managed to track them down in Nebraska.”

“You’re looking for a spellbook?” Howard said slowly, his face falling.

“No.” Vince pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket, and handed it to Howard. “This is the hotel where they were last seen. And I thought…I mean, I wondered… I thought you might like to come with me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for Howard to look at him, instead of reading the same two lines over and over. “I figured that anything that makes Fossil less annoying and fucks up Bainbridge would be something you’d want to be a part of.”

Howard was still silent.

Vince panicked. “Naboo said he’d come with!” he blurted out. “I mean, um. He said if you couldn’t go, he’d shut the shop and come with me. If you didn’t want to go. So you don’t have to.”

Howard re-folded the piece of paper, blinking. “Are you…sure?”

Vince let out a breath in a rush. “Look. I haven’t forgiven you. Not yet. But I’m not as angry as I was a year ago.” He bit the inside of his cheek, running through the speech he’d planned every day for twelve months, the speech that had gone through tears, through violence, through some kind of magical retribution. “You did something…awful. To me.”

Howard screwed his eyes shut, a painful expression on his face.

Vince tipped his head to one side, staring at the ceiling. “But. You did something pretty big to yourself to fix it. Which, we’re not equal, not exactly. But we’ve got somewhere to start from, I think.”

Howard’s eyes sprang open. “Really?”

“Yeah, like…” Vince hid a smirk. “Like, not forgiveness exactly. But a sort of pre-forgiveness. Worth giving a chance, I suppose.”

Howard nodded decisively. “You’ll have to give me a bit of time to sort stuff out, get someone to cover this place, that kind of thing.”

“And say goodbye to Gary,” Vince muttered, and Howard shot him a look. “I’ve got a hotel room on the seafront, I thought you might need a couple of days. I’ll stick around, get an ice cream.”

Howard grinned, the first truly happy expression Vince had seen. It went right to his heart, to his fondest memories, and he struggled, once again, to combine the old and the new Howard. The man who smiled like that, and the man who had stolen three months of his life.

Vince narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t fixed, Howard. Nowhere near.”

Howard’s smile disappeared slowly, and he nodded, sipping at his tea. “But there’s still hope, right?”

~ fin ~

Maestro

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Howard Moon Wins; Vince Noir Loses

Howard Moon Wins; Vince Noir Loses by Maestro

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Maestro

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Howard Moon Wins; Vince Noir Loses by Maestro

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Maestro

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