THE DAY I MET MY EVIL OVERLORD

When he opened his eyes, Blaine had no idea where he was. The big white minimal couch, the panoramic window and the furry rug made no sense to him, especially when the last thing he remembered was himself singing happily in the streets.

He was going to the Warblers Guild, a very elegant and decent club, to which every boy should have aspired to be admitted, and had to be admitted to by the age of eighteen if he wanted to be considered a proper gentleman. Blaine had obviously received his invitation when he was six, being the only son of Lord Blaine Anderson senior, one of the greatest benefactors of the city of Dalton.
Therefore, he had been waiting his whole life for the moment he would have crossed the wooden carved door of the entrance to the marble-lined hall. His father had been telling him stories about the club since he was a little kid and he was oh so happy to finally be allowed in this place of wonders and fun!

But unfortunately, that never happened.

Someone – certainly an evil man with no respect for another fellow gentleman and actually no notion of how to be one himself – had hit him along the street, preventing him from concluding his happy and singing journey to the club house.

Blaine remembered the uncivilized blow, but not much more. By the time he had hit the ground, his eyes were already closing and all he had seen was a big, tall shadow.
He had woken up here, in this unknown room, with no clue of his whereabouts and an unfortunate headache driving him mad.

He took his time to look around, for a moment. The room was huge, with a big black wooden table on the left and a big panoramic window on the right. Through it, he could see a sweep of unfriendly mountains with dangerous looking peaks covered in snow, which was strange because the city of Dalton was nowhere near the mountains and he was quite sure it was a beautiful and sunny morning of mid-August when he had left the house this morning. Aside from the table, the white rounded couch and an awfully furry red rug, Blaine could see what he thought was some sort of counter with strangely shaped vases on it and an upright piano, which didn't work, as he discovered much to his dismay when he tried to draw some old little tune out of it.
Still, the room seemed almost empty, because there wasn't quite enough furniture for a room so big.

He tried the door, of course. But, as he had guessed, it was locked. It looked like a very solid door, the kind of door a man slightly build as himself could not hope to knock down with a strong push of his shoulder.
He hit it with his fists, then. And he called for help but no one came.

Looking at his turnip, that he always kept in perfect conditions as he was his great-grandfather's, Blaine discovered that almost three hours had passed since the sad accident that presumably had brought him here. He found highly discreditable that someone would take the trouble to knock him down and drag him here in this ominously cold, modern looking room, only to leave him there for good. It was unfitting for a villain to show so little interest in his own victim. Blaine felt greatly offended.

He was an Anderson, for the love of God, he deserved a much better treatment as a hostage than that.

Blaine had almost resolved to find a piece of paper and write down a note of angry discontent and completely understandable irritation to his defaulting abductor, when the loophole in the door slid open and a big, black box was pushed through it, not without some struggling as the slit was very narrow.

“Put'em on,” a low and barking voice said to him, as Blaine walked to the door to retrieve the box.

So, Blaine opened the squared and flat box and found out there were clothes in it, and some very disturbing ones to boot. He quickly pressed his face against the loophole but he couldn't see nothing but a bulky figure walking away.

For a moment, he thought about the consequences of obeying such an order. The mind behind his abduction was certainly one of an evil nature, possibly a very sick one too. Wasn't it ill advise for him to comply with what was clearly a clothes fetish of this perverted individual who held him captive? Wouldn't it have been a sign of surrender? Wasn't he giving to this evil creature permission to do with him whatever they wanted?
And most of all, could he really, in all fairness, wear a bow and suspenders?

He believed not so.

So, he came closer to the loophole again and called for the mysterious figure who bore this questionable present to him. “Excuse me, sir. I'm afraid I don't find these clothes to my taste. Would you mind bring me others, if your desire is to make me dress differently from what I do now? Though I must point out that this one you see is the precious and coveted uniform of the Warlbers Guild, which I'm sure you've heard about scores of times.”

“Put'em on. Quickly,” the voice said again. “He is waiting.”
Of course. He should have known this was no place of gentlemen.

Eventually, he decided to make the best of this bad bargain and put on those horrendous clothes. Also because, if he wanted to state his opinion on this awfully conducted abduction to his aggressor, he had to leave the room and apparently there was no other way to do it but wearing the most hideous textile artifacts he had ever seen in his short and yet already so fulfilling life.

The outfit consisted in a tremendous pair of white trousers that were clearly too short for him and left his calves at the mercy of the quite inexplicable chill air inside the place, a striped t-shirt with green suspenders and a pink bow that didn't match any of the other pieces of clothes the box contained, from which Blaine inferred his abductor had to be colorblind or otherwise completely oblivious of what was in fashion for a gentleman at the time. Possibly both of the above.
If that was the case, Blaine felt nothing but pity for the poor creature, because there was no greater grief for him than a man unable to sport a fancy blazer on a good and reasonably long pair of trousers.

As soon as he was fully dressed, he politely knocked on the door and told his warder he was ready.
Soon enough the door was opened and a bulky man entered the room, looking around to find Blaine in a corner, graciously waiting to be escorted wherever he was requested to be.
The man was taller than him and way more burly. He wore a red jacket and black pants that did nothing to compliment his body, which had to be at least quite interesting, judging by the girth of his arms.

“I assume my personal displacement requires for me to be handcuffed,” Blaine welcomed the man, offering him his wrists. “I feel confident that you will see to that with the delicacy a man of my lineage deserves.”

The bulky man looked at him for a moment and then grabbed him by the wrists he offered, then proceeded to unceremoniously drag and push him along fashionable and yet creepy hallways.

*

Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain
I hope that you've enjoyed your stay so far
I see you've met my assistant Scarface
His appearance is quite disturbing
But I assure you he's harmless enough
He's a sweetheart, calls me master
And he has a way of finding pretty things and bringing them to me

Blaine and the mysterious bulky man reached a very big hall, where a long table was set for dinner.
The display was rich and very refined, but Blaine couldn't say to completely agree with the decoration's choice of his still faceless guest. In fact, he found it quite ominous and distasteful. Blaine fostered the strong belief that skulls, bats and very old-looking baroque sacrificial knives should be kept confined only to the day of Halloween and only sparingly used under very strict and precise circumstances. Instead, as far as glittered paraphernalia were concerned, such as some of the candlesticks he was looking at now, they had no place whatsoever in the perfect world he dreamed for himself.

Except for the excessively decorated table, the room was empty. Yet another sign of the questionable manners of his abductor and host.

Blaine was really annoyed, now. But losing his composure was not something he was often inclined to do, therefore he remained perfectly calm in front of what clearly was great disrespect toward his person. “Shall I have the pleasure to meet the master of the house?” He asked to the bulky man.
The man in question was standing right behind him with a very sulky face and apparently no intention of answering that or any other questions.

Time passed and nothing happened. “Is this some sort of practical joke that I should be aware of?” Blaine asked again, after a few minutes of total silence, with the only sound being the fire crackling in the very expensive looking black marble fireplace.

“I was about to make my entrance after what was, by the way, a reasonable amount of time lurking in the shadows, but I'm going to skip that part because apparently someone is so eager to know me that he can't wait ten minutes of breathtaking suspense!” A voiced said, echoing from above.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Blaine said politely, looking around and trying to see that elusive man who, judging by his shadow moving on the balcony above the room, was now walking toward a big staircase in order to reach the hall below it. “I didn't mean to ruin your entrance but this long waiting had eally upset me. I demand you to introduce yourself immediately.”

“And I will at once, my dear,” the man said, finally reaching the end of the staircase and revealing himself in the candles light. “For God forbid I leave you in such state of distress. I'm Kurt Hummel, evil overlord of this castle, this land and of the whole world as soon as I get enough financial backing. Banks are such morons nowadays.” He chuckled in a very studied way, almost covering his mouth with the back of his hand as he searched for sympathy in Blaine, whose face remained inscrutable. “You can call me my lord, for the moment. We will reach the intimacy of our first names soon enough, mister Anderson.”

Blaine had no idea what this man was talking about, besides he wasn't probably really listening to him, busy as he was taking in his appearance. Lord Hummel had some feminine yet quite beautiful features, a very slim and soft figure that he complimented with an all black suite with matching cape and shoes and a generally sassy attitude that made Blaine shiver both in irritation and vague attraction.

“Lord Hummel,” he said as he tried to step forward and was stopped by the huge and quite strong hand of the bulky man grasping his shoulder. He stopped in mid step and cleared his throat. “Would you mind telling me why I have been so violently abducted from the streets of my beloved hometown to be brought in this place?”

“Why don't you have a seat, mister Anderson,” Lord Hummel smiled as he pointed one of the chair to him. “Everything will be explained in due time. I personally dislike hasty conversations mainly arranged to reach one point of discussion or the other. I'd rather have with you a healthy and friendly exchange of opinions on several matters which will lead us to discover how similar we are and how much we can like each other if only we're given the chance to do so. Hence, please have a seat.”

The repeated offer was promptly accepted with the help of the bulky man who brutally pushed Blaine on a chair with disregard for whatever desire he might had on the matter. This was totally unacceptable.
He cast to Lord Hummel a very dark look fraught with all his disappointment in order to make clear to his host that he wasn't content with this outrageous situation at all.

Unfortunately, the master of the house was too busy taking his own seat to even notice that.
“So,” Lord Hummel said, pouring himself some red wine from a very fashionable but very impractical bottle with a black dragon wrapped around it. “I understand you met my assistant, Dave.”

“I wouldn't say that I had the pleasure. Your man barely spoke to me as he was dragging and pushing me along the corridors of your house, sir,” he answered, doing very little to hide his irritation. “What he has in strength, he surely lacks in good manners.”

Lord Hummel chuckles. “I'd rather say that what he lacks in good manners, he has in strength, my dear mister Anderson. Besides, I didn't choose him for his ability with words,” he said, looking at Dave who instantly looked down and blushed. “Anyway, he is harmless enough. You shouldn't be worrying about him. Actually, I confide you will find out how precious he is to me and you will share with me his preciousness in no time.”

“No offense, Lord Hummel, but I highly doubt so,” Blaine replied, with a certain composure that hid, as it often happens, thoughts of a very different nature. “I prefer the company of men who are well educated and whom I share various interests with, such as music, singing, dancing and all that society requires for a young man to like, nowadays.”

Lord Hummel looked at him with some sort of sardonic smile. “I used to think the same,” he said enigmatically. “But please, have dinner with me. There is so much else I want to talk you about.”

*

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don't like it
What's with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don't like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Blaine was not used to accept any dinner invitation unless it wasn't written on proper letter paper and sent to his house at least two weeks in advance. In fact, it was common courtesy for a gentleman to give his possible guests enough time to revise all their previous commitments before they had to give a response.
Sometimes, depending on who was sending the invitation, Blaine was inclined to accept it even if the referred event was too close at hand, but he would only do that with very close friends and his lovely mother.

Anyway, he hadn't been given much of a choice this time, since the bulky man – who now he knew was named Dave – was already serving them the main course, which consisted in a very elaborate dish of what he supposed was grilled meat. “Lord Hummel, I hope you won't find my words harsh but I honestly feel I have all the rights to ask again. Why exactly am I here?”

The smile on Lord Hummel's face was everything but comforting. The long cut of his mouth was just slightly curled at the edges, either to show that he was really pleased to see him or really excited for things yet to come, Blaine was not sure. So he resolved to be scared anyway.

“I rejoice to find you so naive, mister Anderson, for your heritage and fortune with the ladies had me thinking you were one of those young men so full of themselves that there's not much room in them for intelligence or even some primal cause of entertainment.”

“I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, Lord Hummel, but I don't fancy women, even though I find them quite charming creatures. My fortune with them is only of an amicable nature.”

Lord Hummel's smile turned warmer and warmer with his every word. “No disappointment at all, mister Anderson. In fact, I'm happier than I was before of having you here with me. Now, the somehow dreadful task of opening my heart to you will be nothing but a mere formality.”

Blaine sighed as he politely cleansed his mouth with a napkin. “Then, speak,” he said. “Curiosity is quickly leading me to an untimely death.”

Lord Hummel cleared his throat, signaling that a major speech was about to take place, so Blaine stopped eating and gave the other man his full attention. “As you might or might not know, I am the master of this castle and my family has ruled the entire land for generations,” Lord Hummel began. “My great-great-grandfather was actually the first dark overlord who took this beautiful land of happiness and turned it into a reign of terror and despair, killing half the population by polluting the water supply with a poison he had created.”

Blaine's eyes widened. “How unfortunate for all those poor people, and yet quite brilliant of your ancestor,” he said politely.

“Oh, he had such a brilliant mind!” Lord Hummel said as he glanced at the portrait of his great-great-grandfather with pure adoration in his eyes. “I followed in his footsteps, did you know that? I wiped out my first little village when I was only twelve. It was a very ferocious, lab-created deadly virus, a variant of the plague I came up with by chance, during one of my many attempts to find a good receipt for chocolate chip cookies. But these are trivialities I am gonna tell you when we will be strolling down my winter garden, while everything in the valley will be on fire.”

“Fascinating,” Blaine commented, not sure about what he was supposed to say. Making conversation was one of his many gentleman abilities, but Lord Hummel was talking nonsense and he knew it was impolite to point that out to a perfect stranger.

“And quite so, you will see,” Lord Hummel nodded. “Anyway, not only I want to match my ancestor. In fact, I want to exceed him and put him in the shadow for good. And I have a plan for that. A great plan consisting in tactical and well thought schemes, complete with a certain number of alphabetically identified variants for emergencies and a quick five-steps procedure in case I won't have the time to make my major end of the world speech and I will need to quickly get it over with. They won't be able to stop me, in any case whatsoever.”

“Correct me if I am wrong, but do I sense an adversative preposition coming?”

“You sense correctly, mister Anderson,” Lord Hummel nodded gravely. “You see, my plan is flawless but, as numinous as my brain appears, I'm only human as the rest of you and therefore subject to the feebleness of my heart.”

“Are you by any chance in love, Lord Hummel?”

“To the point of shame. I'm constantly distracted by the thought of this person, often sighing at the memory of them in my head, always daydreaming of having them near me, so I can hug them, squeeze them, kiss them and do with them things that should be confined behind closed door. Being so distracted makes me unable to perpetrate my plan of conquer and enslave the world.”

“How unfortunate. And who would it be this charming siren who stole your heart and seems unwilling to give it back to you?”

“You, my dear,” Lord Hummel answered, in a very dramatic tone. A light, also very dramatic, came out of nowhere and floodlit him, throwing everything else into pitch black shadows. Blaine looked around with anxiety as some sad piano notes started playing. “You are my siren. I fell in love with you from the moment I first saw you on my monitors, thanks to various wireless cameras I had formerly installed all through the city to keep it under control.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Busy as he was confessing his love to him, Lord Hummel was not listening to Blaine anymore. He swirled around, closely followed by his own private light. “You are so gorgeous, always jumping on furniture, despising the mere act of walking and common sense as well. I love the way you're constantly embarrassing yourself by singing songs with very inappropriate lyrics without even noticing.”

“Now, that's not even true.”

“You're out of place half of the time and even when you actually are in the right place, you act as you were coming from another time. You're the most unsuitable creature I've ever seen – and I've seen and created a lot of them – but I love you. And I don't even know why.”

“Actually, it doesn't seem to me that you like me at all,” Blaine continued. “it must be some sort of obsession. I don't want to sound impolite or offensive, Lord Hummel, but I think it would be wise for you to seek medical attention.”

Lord Hummel came closer to him and gently stroked his face. He smiled and kept talking like Blaine was not even really there to listen to him. He was probably more used to make those kind of speeches when he was alone than it was normal. “You know, even my henchmen think I am crazy because there is absolutely nothing to love about you. I'm not even surprised that you agree.”

“You are now being offensive.”

Caught up in the bliss of what was probably mental illness, Lord Hummel just smiled. “But don't worry, my dear. My henchmen have no say whatsoever in the matter,” he said. “The voices inside my head say I shouldn't kill you yet, so I won't. They have always been a precious guide to me and I trust their wisdom. With their sage words they brought me where I am now, they molded me into the man I've become.”

“Now, about medical help...”

“Enough with such tedious chatters,” Lord Hummel clapped his hands with too much enthusiasm. “I have a very special present for you. Are you happy?”

Blaine was everything but happy and the only thing he wanted was to leave that creepy place and its creepy owner at once. But he couldn't. The door was too far away for him to pass through it before somebody stopped him. Running was definitely not his thing. He needed to convince Lord Hummel to let him go, that he had possibly nothing to give to him and they could never be happy together. He had a way with words, he could do it. Problem was, Lord Hummel seemed to like to talk by himself, so he had no chance to speak.

“Dave!” Lord Hummel screamed suddenly, turning to the bulky man. “Bring in my present! He wants to see it, now.”

Blaine had no desire to see anything, but he was forced to watch as Dave pushed a huge wheeled cart inside the room and stopped it in front of Kurt. “This, my love,” Kurt said, “it is something I made especially for you. I called it Pavarotti. Even though, as you will soon find out, I did it in an ironic way.”

Lord Hummel took away the veil that was covering Blaine's present and revealed a huge birdcage.
Inside, there was some sort of creature that Blaine could have not be able to describe for his life but that got a very scared and very girly scream out of him.

“What in the world is that?”

“This, my dear, is my latest creation,” Lord Hummel explained, proudly. “Half canary, half crow with some minor quantities of other animals here and there. But basically canary and crow, mixed together through a very complex procedure which is way beyond your ability to comprehend. So you can think of me gluing a canary to a crow and enlarge the result through a magnify lens of some sort.”
The outcome was a gigantic and very ugly bird who thought very high of himself and sung all the time; but instead of a tuneful song, he let out a horrific, ear-bleeding shriek of which he was really proud. Therefore the name, Blaine thought.

“Please, make it stop!” Blaine screamed, covering his ears and taking a step back.

“I can't. It would hurt his pride,” Lord Hummel screamed back over the sound of the creature, which swung his head back and forth and watched them with all his three and a half eyes.

“Then, take it away!” Blaine shouted.

“But Pavarotti is just arrived,” Lord Hummel said. “Don't you want me to open the cage? You can take a closer look if you want.”

“For the love of God, no!” Blaine screamed, when he saw that Lord Hummel was about to open the birdcage and let the monster out. “Keep it closed and take that thing away!”

Pavarotti stopped screaming his song to glare at Blaine and Lord Hummel raised an eyebrow, a little taken aback. “Alright, fine. Dave will take it away,” he said. “There is no need to be so rude and let yourself go to hysteria. It is just a little bird, Blaine. You really should consider to see a doctor for these little bouts of yours.”

Blaine breathed heavily and watched with relief as the birdcage and its horrible occupant were taken away.
An escape, as ungentlemanly as it was, had just been made necessary.

*

Picture the two of us alone inside my golden submarine
While up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere
And all the fools who live their foolish lives may find it quite explosive
But it won't mean half as much to me if I don't have you here

After the monstrous bird accident, the room was silent again. Both Blaine and Lord Hummel was looking at the door Dave had struggled to close behind himself with his free hand as he was pushing the heavy, wheeled cage with the other.

“So,” Lord Hummel suddenly turned to him and clapped his hand quickly. “It's just the two of us, now.”

Was it a threat? It surely felt so to Blaine. That man was insane and whatever was that he wanted from Blaine, it couldn't be any saner than him. “Apparently so,” he nodded, looking at him from a distance and keeping him under control, like he was some sort of feral animal ready to attack as soon as he lowered his gaze.

“It seems to me that we started off with the wrong foot,” Lord Hummel said, pouring himself some wine without bothering to ask Blaine if he wanted some. Such lack of education would have been looked down upon at the Warblers Guild where every gentleman, even the youngest one, would know better than leave a guest without a drink. “And I can sense my creature was responsible for that. I beg you to accept my apology, for I had no intention of scaring you in any way. Pavarotti was created at the sole purpose of entertain you and give you joy because I know how much you love to sing and listen to beautiful, cheerful songs.”

Blaine thought that one had to be crazy to consider beautiful and cheerful the cry of a creature as far from God's will as the one he had just saw, but a good gentleman knew that apologies must always be accepted because it took courage and bravery to make them. “Apology accepted,” he said. “But if I may, Lord Hummel, next time you want to impress me or any other gentleman for that matter, just open a good bottle of red, have a smart conversation and try not to kidnap me.”

Lord Hummel looked at him smiling and gave no sign of having heard a single word he had said. “Look at your eyes, they're green and gold like the meadow when you burn a witch. I can see the long emerald spread of the grass lit now and then by the sparks of yellow light from the heretic’s pyre. You are so very beautiful, Blaine,” Lord Hummel said in a dreamy voice. He sighed, a hand to his chest as he contemplated Blaine. “But please, allow me to make up for the horrible mistake I've done to you with my creature. I have a story to tell you and I am sure you will find it quite amusing and inspiring.”

Blaine didn't say anything, also because there was no need to. Lord Hummel had already run up on the balcony to better narrate whatever tale he had to tell. The dramatic spotlight was back again and cast its light on Lord Hummel alone, giving him a very dramatic note.

“You already know that I plan to conquer and rule this land,” Lord Hummel began, his shadow outlined against the yellow sphere of the full moon. “And I am sure you are dying to know how I think to achieve that. Well, my love, in five days my tailoring machine will be ready and so I will be able to create, sew and produce all the clothes I need to clothe every single man down to the last of the poorest beggar and finally – finally! - I will be able to call this land my own. Through the computers sewn inside the fabric I will have the entire population at my command. Everyone will buy my creations and will be ready to sell his family to buy even more of them. The ones who cross me will be burned alive, and their family will be burned, and their houses will be leveled until they will beg to wear one of my beautiful coats or put on an incredible pair of my softest pants, like the one you...”

When Lord Hummel finally bothered to turn around and give some attention to the man he was actually speaking to, he found out said man wasn't there anymore. The door of the room was once again open and ajar as if someone had just gone through it.

“Dave!” He screamed, turning red with rage as the bulky man entered the room, running. “He's gone. Find him. I need something for the migraine,” he shouted. “In reverse order.”

*

You know it isn't easy living here on Skullcrusher Mountain
Maybe you could cut me just a little slack
Would it kill you to be civil?
I've been patient, I've been gracious
And this mountain is covered with wolves
Hear them howling, my hungry children
Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you

Blaine didn't go too far because Lord Hummel's fortress was huge and full of secret passages.
Once he managed to get out of that room, he started wandering through several long and dark halls, lacking both in taste and sense. The place must have been built by a blind architect, or a drunk one. Blaine was also considering him being both. There was no way the people in this house could move around knowing where they were going.

Eventually, thanks to the goodwill of Lady Fortune – who, as much as any other girl around, found him pretty amiable and worth of trust and love – he found a way out. But as soon as he took one step out of the door, he realized he didn't know where exactly this fortress was located.

First of all, it was night. And not a simple one, of course.
It was the creepiest night of all nights, with no stars in sight and a big full moon hovering just above his head, as if it was ready to fall on him. One of those nights that give you the impression that every single evilness could have the chance to be happening right now in some place where you might o might not be heading. A night that invited him to stay inside, as crazy as the inside was.

Secondly, the ancient, scary, dark forest surrounding the fortress was not very inviting. And was actually very random too, because Blaine was sure no ancient, scary, dark forest happened to be anywhere near the city he was kidnapped from. He had been abducted no more then twelve hours before, which was a reasonable amount of time to reach some city about ninety miles away. He had traveled the whole land and there was nothing similar in a three hundred miles radius from his hometown.
All those tall, gloomy trees should have not been there at all.

He was pondering the whole matter when Dave found him and promptly lifted him up on his shoulders, deaf to his protests and the outraged flailing of his short legs in the air.
Despite his complaining, Dave brought him back in the room he had escaped from, where Lord Hummel was sipping his medicine, carefully massaging his temple and making soft, little noises.

“Is he okay?” He asked as he glanced over him. Dave nodded. “I hate when prisoners break or get lost, Blaine. Did you know that?”

“I'm afraid I wasn't aware of that,” Blaine answered, still perched as an old empty bag over Dave's shoulder.

“Well, you should have been. It was very inappropriate of you to run away like that while I was speaking to you,” Lord Hummel said. “Lack of education, to say the least.”

“I was just trying to go back home,” Blaine explained, while Dave gently let him down on the floor, “for I have been kept in this place against my will and I have no desire to stay.”

“You can't go back home,” Lord Hummel said, turning to face him. “Did you notice where we are?”

“Actually, Lord Hummel, this is something I wanted to ask you. Where are we and what is this place? It looks like nothing I've ever seen around Dalton.”

Lord Hummel let out a very resigned sigh. “That is because this place doesn't exists around Dalton or even far from it. This place doesn't exists at all and if you were just a little more patient, I would have explained that to you after the tale of my conquest plan,” he said. “Right now, we are inside my weather-sphere, which is in turn inside my location-sphere, in a very matryoshka doll-like fashion, given that you know what a matryoshka doll is, of course.”

“I know,” Blaine pointed out, frowning. “What eludes me are the spheres.”

“Of course they do, they are both pieces of extremely high technology that sometimes elude my genius too, so it is perfectly normal that they upset your simple mind with their complexity.”

“They actually don't,” Blaine pouted. “I just want to know what they are.”

“A location-sphere is a device that allows me to take a certain location and recreate it down to its smallest detail in another place, inside the confines of the sphere itself. So, what are you looking at now through my windows is the perfect copy of a portion of the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania. But it could be every place I want. For example, the Hawaiian Island of Maui or the beautiful and historical city of Rome,” Lord Hummel said, pressing some buttons on an out-of-scale remote control. Outside the windows, the mountains became the Ocean and the spruces became slim palms. Then everything disappeared to make room for the Colosseum. “Or both, of course.”

Blaine watched as the palm raised all around the Colosseum and the Ocean started lapping against its crumbling walls. “So, it's safe to say that the weather-sphere controls the weather?”

“You are so very intelligent, my love. I was just looking for a beautiful lover, but I don't mind if you can also make logic connections,” Lord Hummel smiled proudly for no reason at all. “So, with my weather-sphere, I can have sun, snow and rain whenever I want. And intersecting the two spheres...”

“You can have whatever weather in whatever location, I understand,” Blaine cut short.

“That's correct,” Lord Hummel nodded, slightly offended because he could not finish his sentence. “This is why you can't go back home. You can't leave the sphere without turning it off, which can't be done without my codes.”

“I will try to escape again and I will live in the mountains, feeding on berries if it is going to be necessary.”

“That if the wolves don't feed on you first,” Lord Hummel said, totally unimpressed.

“Wolves?”

“These mountains,” Lord Hummel said and then changed the location because it was still Maui with a Colosseum out there, “are covered with wolves. Big, mean and very hungry beasts. Can you hear them howling over the sound of your nonsense babbling?”

They both stayed quiet for a moment and Blaine could hear the not-so-distant cry and growl of several wolves that made him shiver from head to toe. If Pavarotti was the size of hundreds of canaries and a crow put together, he didn't want to know how big those creatures were.

“So,” Lord Hummel continued, “If you want, you can try and run away again but you will probably end up scattered in pieces everywhere, which is fine with me because I need fertilizer but you would probably be very disappointed and dead. So, could you please have another glass of wine and just shut up?”

Blaine, as a matter of fact, shut up and drank.

*

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet

Now that Blaine was calm again, also because he had already drunk too much to even stand, so the only thing he could do was actually sitting, Lord Hummel turned back from being so generally evil overlording to his usual insane but cute self. He had changed the weather-sphere into soft snow, which matched perfectly the warm and cozy feeling of the fireplace and his outstanding but quiet incomprehensible audio system was playing a sweet almost Christmas-like song.

“You know,” he said as he watched the snowflakes piling up on the windowsill, “I think I really love you. Obviously I am making assumptions here, because love it's not my area of expertise, but I've never felt this way before, so maybe this is it.”

Blaine was barely able to say where he was exactly, so he nodded as if he was really understanding everything. Besides, he could not escape so his life was that, now. Never a member of the Warblers Guild, but forever the sweetheart of the evil, and most of all crazy, mastermind who was going to burn down the land he was born in. All said and done, that was a position of prestige too. Plus, he got to stay alive, which was more than everybody would be able to say in five days.

“Yes, I definitely love you,” Lord Hummel continued, clearly as drunk as Blaine was. “From what I heard about, people in love don't think according to logic processes but do what their heart says. My heart doesn't speak, but I've got voices in my head and I think it is almost the same.”

“I think that's called madness,” Blaine said.

“Poets say lovers are mad, don't they?”

Blaine had no option but to agree. “You have a point.”
After all, his last lover was not really normal either. Sebastian didn't burn people, but he hit on them so frequently it was almost compulsive. Wasn't that some sort of mental illness as well?

“You see, I'm quite the enthusiast but I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this love thing, since I'm not what you call the average suitor,” Lord Hummel pondered over another glass of good red. “Should I propose to you? Or should I marry you by force?”

“They are both equally disturbing options,” Blaine said.

“Thanks,” Lord Hummel answered. “I will think about it and then I will let you now. Anyway, whatever it is, this condition which gives me palpitations and interferes so much with my work, I'm willing to give it a try. What do you say?”

“I have a say in this?” Blaine asked.

“No, I was just trying to be nice,” Lord Hummel said as Blaine sighed. He clapped his hands twice. “Dave! Bring my entertainment supplies here. I want to show them to Blaine.”

Dave went away for a couple of minutes, leaving them contemplating the snow falling outside that was quickly turning into a blizzard. When he came back, he had a trunk with him and a pair of fluffy handcuffs dangling from his finger.

Blaine looked at them and whined desperately.
Great, it was Sebastian all over again.