Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck by Dale E. Basye Read Free Book Online

tea from a small porcelain cup. Meanwhile, Marlo fought the pull of the woman’s mirror. It was as if her eyes were fastened to it with Silly Putty, and the more she struggled to free her gaze, the more the putty stretched and contorted her reflection.
    Farzana peeked into the room. The sound of the door opening—a slurping, backward belch—coaxed Marlo from her stupor.
    “Excuse me, madame, but it’s time for your two o’clock with Sheila Shylock and Lady Lily Lassiter,” Farzana said in one fluid, perfectly enunciated breath. She wiped away her milk mustache with a quick sweep of her tongue. Madame Pompadour cocked her eyebrow.
    “I thought my two o’clock was at four?”
    “No, madame. At four you’re meeting with the lab about your latest line of lovely lemon liniment for learned ladies.”
    Madame Pompadour nodded.
    “Fine, then,” she said as she jotted down a note in her Vilofax. “And I believe that Miss Fauster here could use a glass of Beauty Cream.”
    Marlo pried her eyes from her homely image. “No … madame,” she managed. “I’m lactose intolerant.
Severely
. It does things to my plumbing that I wouldn’t wish on, well …
you
, even. Once I went on an aerosol cheese binge and woke up the next day in the hospital.”
    Madame Pompadour glared at Marlo.
    “That’s …
unfortunate,”
she grumbled while tinkling her bracelet with her fingers. “My Beauty Cream is a unique blend of ingredients designed to create a foundation of poise and refinement. I will have to think of other …
means
… of drawing out your charm.”
    The haughty woman opened her top drawer and plucked out a small red velveteen pouch. She pushed it across her desk.
    “It’s a welcoming gift,” Madame Pompadour explained. “It also doubles as a cell phone. So I can keep my girls close—no matter where they are.”
    Marlo’s curiosity got the best of her (hopefully it would kill the cat that got her tongue), and she turned to receive her gift.
    She picked up the pouch, loosened its drawstring, and pulled out a gorgeous, tortoiseshell compact case. Marlo marveled at its ornate, filigree embellishments.She flipped it open with her thumb. Tiny blue lights surrounding the mirror inside the compact’s lid strobed in a mesmerizing pulse. Marlo stared at her reflection, overly magnified so that her face looked like the surface of the moon.
    “You’re welcome,”
Madame Pompadour said wearily. “My, we have a lot of work to do, don’t we, Miss Fauster? But that is all for now. You may leave.”
    Marlo cradled the compact in her palm. It radiated peculiar swells of electricity that throbbed in time to her own heartbeat. She couldn’t take her eyes off herself, though—horrified by what she saw—that’s exactly what she wanted to do, more than anything. She trembled as she scanned the ravaged, cratered surface of her face in the mirror.
    “Marlo,”
Farzana whispered with urgency, waving Marlo to her as if trying to coax a duck across a busy highway.
    “It’s really quite simple,” Madame Pompadour explained with passive disgust. “You do exactly what you did to get
into
my office, only in reverse.”
    Madame Pompadour returned to her Vilofax. To her, it was as if Marlo suddenly ceased to exist. The problem was, Marlo was beginning to feel the same way.

6 • i N THE FL i CK OF i T
    INSIDE THE MASSIVE tent was—somehow—an even
more
massive carnival. It was crowded with lurid signs ( BEHOLD: EL HOPPO THE MEXICAN FROG BOY! for instance), sideshow exhibits, and baffling rides.
A carnival on the edge of time
, Milton thought.
    He looked above him at the swaying wooden sign, daubed in bright yellow and blue: STEP RIGHT UP …
    And so Milton did, passing beneath the sign to the frozen, painted metal automaton standing between the hundred or so fearful phantoms and the midway. The figure wore a black top hat and a pin-striped vest, waistcoat, and pants. It held a varnished wooden cane with what looked like a