Pinocchio's Palace

Stefan Von Krass, known as Pinocchio on account of his long nose and his lies, was an evil man with spite's glint in his grey eyes and hatred's thin curl upon his lips. There was a dark storm in his pinched heart forever leeching on the soft malleable generosity of those he fell upon and devoured.
- "To Happen Upon And Destroy" - Stefan's motto, technique and vocation. Von Krass was in essence vampiric. His raison d'être was based on an innate need to take the life out of the living. The pure he would dissolve, the good he would suck out and spit away, the actively creative he would lay back down to its latent form, the positive he would obliterate past negative and into void. He could pinpoint a particular passion in an individual, a social group or a business concern and he would stride into the middle as one who shared it and slowly, impreceptibly he would turn the heat of their passion against itself so that it was rendered down like pig fat into nothing. Two or three of these projects would be run in concurrence to maximize profits that were reckoned up in terms of satiation. His momentary gains, though often large, were secondary.
On waking one crisp winter's morn just a little way past the midpoint of his life, Stefan knew it was time to seek out greener pastures. The name Pinocchio had been bandied about within his own earshot too often too carelessly. He supposed he had worked the same game over and over far too long in too small an area and his cover had now blown. Recent victims were filing cases he did not wish to answer. No hard evidence could be found against him but nevertheless it was time to go. So he abluted using unguents of violets and cosmetic creams of cucumber and avocado, he blackened and oiled back his hair and nattily applied the faintest touch of pink blusher to his pale drawn cheeks. The fop in the looking glass peered from the high arches of his eyebrows, right the way down the length of his authoritative nose and sneered at the world beneath. Adhering to a staunch perfection designed to intimidate, he dressed in a dark grey three piece, a cream silk shirt and a paisley dickie-bow. His ox blood shoes were over shiny and his suit pristine. An outfit hard and sharp in crease and cut wards of curiosity. It speaks for itself, no one contests it. His clothes were his armour. He packed a leather travelling bag, each item folded with a geometrician's neurotic precision. The bag snapped shut. He settled a camel hair coat across his shoulders, placed a white silk scarf about his neck, pulled on black leather gloves, angled his trilby and set out.
Lazily submitting to the rolling gait of the Trans-European Express, Von Krass, gazing through his compartment window from one heavy lidded but still resting eye, espied the Palace. In a moment it was gone and Stefan, wide awake now, had gone with it, captivated by that split second's glimpse of its strange medley of turrets and bulbous spires and outdoor spiralling staircases all perched like an eyrie atop a steep and forested mountain. He had to see more. But unfortunately for Stefan there would be no sightseeing party or guided tour, for this was a private Palace owned by and old and dying man who had a beautiful daughter, still too young and naive to have hardened herself against the wickedness of the world, would inherit all in a matter of weeks. I say unfortunately, because although here was a situation for the taking and take it Stefan surely would, unbeknown to him and indeed to anyone for the past five hundred years, the builder of the Palace had instructed a sorcerer to lay a curse on the stones that would come into effect should he ever be vanquished and his palace be inhabited by a rival baron. The wizard had stood at the edge of the quarry and over each large stone laid in a cart pulled by six donkeys, he uttered these words;

"Fool a Cuckoo with a welcome,
Watch a Jackdaw steal the gold,
A Magpie roost amidst its plunder
And a Cockerel strut so bold.
Pay no heed to a Peacock's vanity,
Of a Vulture have no fears
As its talons tear through carrion
For four full years.
A year of acquisition,
A year of gain,
A year of arrogance,
A year of disdain.
At a feast of Victory
See an Eagle soar.
See an Eagle plummet
When the Feast Day numbers four.
The foot that crossed the threshold lamed,
See a Gander stumble,
The hand that pushed the door will claw
As its bones begin to crumble.
A bird lies crippled in another's bed,
Madness in its soul.
A bird imprisoned in another's Palace,
Caged in the cage it stole."

The spell was still intact.

A gingerbread station waited. Its window boxes abloom with geraniums, its shutters all daintily painted sky blue and dusty pink to match the decorative woodwork that edged the eaves over the platform and the low surrounding picket fence. The train pulled in. One passenger alighted, none embarked. Bag in hand, Stefan Von Krass hailed the one awaiting cab to his terrible end.