We are two of a kind; violent, unsound of mind. I’m the Yin to your Yang, don’t you see? And if I were to leave you would grumble and grieve. Face it Bats, you’d be lost without me.

He stood tall and proud, menace dripping from him as he faced down the assembled contestants. After the rather loud hubbub of his entrance the girls (and Robin) had carefully descended from their rooms to view the hulking figure who stood in the lobby, the icy wind and fluttering snow whipping around his feet near the writhing sack, a sack from which issued a moan.

The masked figure prodded the sack with his cane. “Hush now, Columbina, Ellecan will tend to your needs shortly.” Or at least it sounded like ‘Ellecan’ when the syrupy Lombard accent issued from beneath the black and red leather half-mask that disguised the upper half of his features. “Now, what ‘ave we ‘ere? They did not give me the information when I signed on. Where is your Master?”

That was Bob’s cue to rush through the open door and attempt to tackle the motley dressed giant. He’d long since left his self preservation instinct behind, sometime around the second stabbing tonight. Covered in the blood of the staff, it would be hard to say which of the males in the room looked more terrifying.

The giant literally cartwheeled out of the way, causing Bob to land at the foot of the staircase just below Cassie. While not enough to truly hurt him, it was enough to slow him down to the point where he could take in the situation.

“Ahhhh, zis must be ‘im. You are Bub, no?” Easily eight feet tall and built like the offspring of a side of beef and a cement mixer, the figure was dressed in a white tunic and puffy pantaloons with a uniform pattern of alternating red and black diamonds. In black gloves hands he held a broad walking stick of some dark gnarled wood, and perched upon his head was a soft floppy hat in the same pattern as his clothing, but for the fox tail that rose from it’s crown. In front of the hat, but above the stylized half mask, a pair of horns curled from his head, rising an easy eight inches.

But it was that mask that drew the eye, with its broad snub nose and artificial laugh lines surrounding the black pits of the eye holes, pits behind which no eyes were visible. Below the mask, his cruel mouth was framed by a thin Van Dyke beard and mustache combination.

“Bub?”

“Like the singer… Bub Dylan?”

“It’s pronounced Bob.” He was rising to his feet, adrenaline still pumping, making his movements seem wobbly.

“Oh… ‘Baab’.” The giant’s laugh was a hideous thing to hear, although that was due to the sound itself or the creature from which it issues is up for debate. “Well zen, ‘Baab’, you are ze Maestro, yes? And I? I am ze new host, Ellecan.”

Alicia heard it then. With the accent and the attire she knew what was standing before her. Language and accent change names as concepts pass from one culture to another. In England, to the Saxons he would have been Herla, the lost king of the Brittons doomed to ride with his retinue forever at the head of the Wild Hunt under the curse of The Great God Pan. In Italy he had become Alichino, a demonic trickster, in Germany Das Erlkönig. In more modern times, his Italian name had risen among the comedia de l’arte as Arlecchino, The Harlequin, but his original name came from the Normans. Hellequin, the king of the host, an emissary of Satan on earth with the duty of chasing the souls of sinners to return them to his dark master.

Hellequin prodded the sack again, making it writhe. “Tomorrow we ‘ave a challenge, no?”

(Title: “The Joker’s Song” by Miracle of Sound)