Challenge 8: Playing With Fire

Story Title: The Spectacular Dragon-Man

Character/Relationships: Edward, circa 1928

Rating: R

Words: 534

Warnings: Implied violence

The small, simple, and quiet town became alive when the carnival arrived. The empty dirt lot was decorated with bright lights and tents of strange colors. Exotic characters like the bearded woman and the world's strongest man caused jaws to drop. The minds of the town-folk have never been stimulated like that before. They were amazed and inspired.

However, with the strange new characters also came unfortunate and tragic events the town never experienced. A few young women had gone missing, only to be found a few days later. The things that had been done to the victims was unspeakable. The only way to identify the women was to compare the bodies with their dental records.

With no leads or suspects the police had no legal authority to shut down the carnival just yet. However, as fate or luck would have it, Edward Cullen had been passing through just at the right time.

Edward pushed through the noisy, congested crowd. He singled out the swarming activity: children crying on scary rides, greasy food frying, uptempo music playing, announcers getting the attention of their audience, and performers amazing the spectators with their freakish tricks. Somewhere in this madness was the vile monster he was looking for. The venom pooled in his mouth just thinking about his next meal.

A bright orange flash danced out of the corner of Edward's eye. A large crowd gathered around to watch The Spectacular Dragon-Man.

The Spectacular Dragon-Man was tall, muscular, and wearing a loin cloth to show off his head to toe tattoos. He twirled and juggled lit torches faster than the human eye can see. Occasionally the performer would do his "dragon" trick and make it look like he was breathing fire from his mouth.

The audience expressed their awe and applauded. The Spectacular Dragon-Man raised up his hand asking for more praise and then encouraged them to continue their applause into a steady beat. Taking his torches he juggled them to the rhythm of the clapping. As it got faster The Spectacular Dragon-Man added another torch until he was up to nine total. Just when the audience thought he couldn't get any more crazy, he lit the other ends of the torches on fire, without a break.

The Spectacular Dragon-Man kept the juggling act up for two minutes until he extinguished each end of the nine torches with his mouth.

His audience erupted in cheers and whistles. Except Edward who was studying the juggler's quick moves and listening to his thoughts. The pyromaniac was arrogant, egotistical, and his language was as filthy as he looked. Edward was so disgusted he was losing his appetite, but the world would be a better place without this abominable creature. He would kill him without resorting to drinking his blood.

The Spectacular Dragon-Man bowed over and over to everyone in the circle. Every bow he took was low, and as he straightened up again he winked at a young woman right in front of him.

Edward sneered with disgust at the repulsive thoughts he had to hear. He vowed those women would be safe tonight. The Spectacular Dragon-Man played with fire long enough.