Circus of the Damned

33

It was an hour before dawn. When all the Whos down in Whoville were asnooze in their beds without care. Sorry, wrong book. If I get to stay awake until dawn, I get just a tad slaphappy. I'd been up all night teaching Larry how to be a good, law-abiding animator. I wasn't sure Bert would appreciate the last, but I knew I would.

The cemetery was small. A family plot with pretensions. A narrow two-lane road rounded a hill, and suddenly there it was, a swathe of gravel beside the road. You had seconds to decide to turn in, that this was it. Tombstones climbed up the hill. The angle was so steep, it looked like the coffins should have slid downhill.

We stood in the dark with a canopy of trees whispering overhead. The woods were thick on either side of the road. The little plot was just a narrow space beside the road, but it was well cared for. There were still-living family members to see to the upkeep. I didn't even want to imagine how they mowed the hillside. Maybe a rope-and-pulley system to make sure the mower didn't roll over and add another corpse.

Our last clients of the night had just driven away back to civilization. I'd raised five zombies. Larry had raised one. Yeah, he could have raised two, but we just ran out of darkness. It doesn't take that long to raise a zombie, at least for me, but there's travel time included. In four years I'd only had two zombies in the same cemetery on the same night. Most of the time you were driving like a maniac to make all the appointments.

My poor car had been towed to a service station, but the insurance people hadn't seen it yet. It would take days or weeks for them to tell me it was totaled. There hadn't been time to rent a car for the night, so Larry was driving. He'd have been with me even if I'd had the car. I was the one bitching about not having enough help, so I got to train him. It was only fair, I guessed.

The wind rushed through the trees. Dry leaves scurried across the road. The night was full of small, hurried noises. Rushing, rushing, towards. . what? All Hallows Eve. You could feel Halloween on the air.

"I love nights like this," Larry said.

I glanced over at him. We were both standing with our hands in our pockets staring out into the darkness. Enjoying the evening. We were also both covered in dried chicken blood. Just a nice, normal night.

My beeper went off. The high-pitched beep sounded very wrong in the quiet, windswept night. I hit the button. Mercifully, the noise stopped. The little light flashed a phone number at me. I didn't recognize the number. I hoped it wasn't Dolph, because an unfamiliar number this late at night, or early in the morning, meant another murder. Another body.

"Come on, we gotta get to a phone."

"Who is it?"

"I'm not sure." I started down the hill.

He followed me and asked, "Who do you think it is?"

"Maybe the police."

"The murders you're working on?"

I glanced back at him and rammed my knee into a tombstone. I stood there for a few seconds, holding my breath while the pain ran through me. "Shiiit!" I said softly and with feeling.

"Are you all right?" Larry touched my arm.

I drew away from his hand, and he let his hand drop. I wasn't much into casual touching. "I'm fine." Truth was, it still hurt, but what the hell? I needed to get to a phone, and the pain would get better the more I walked on it. Honest.

I stared carefully ahead to avoid other hard objects. "What do you know about the murders?"

"Just that you're helping the police on a preternatural crime, and that it's taking you away from your animating jobs."

"Bert told you that."

"Mr. Vaughn, yes."

We were at the car. "Look, Larry, if you're going to work for Animators, Inc., you've got to drop all this Mr. and Ms. stuff. We aren't your professors. We're coworkers."

He smiled, a flash of white in the dark. "All right, Ms. . Anita."

"That's better. Now let's go find a phone."

We drove into Chesterfield on the theory that, as the closest town, it would have the closest phone. We ended up at a bank of pay phones in the parking lot of a closed service station. The station glowed softly in the dark, but a halogen streetlight beamed over the pay phones, turning night into day. Insects and moths danced around the light. The swift, flitting shapes of bats swam in and out of the light, eating the insects.

I dialed the number while Larry waited in the car. Give him a point for discretion. The phone rang twice; then a voice said, "Anita, is that you?"

It was Irving Griswold, reporter and friend. "Irving, what in blazes are you doing paging me at this hour?"

"Jean-Claude wants to see you tonight, now." His voice sounded rushed and uncertain.

"Why are you delivering the message?" I was afraid I wasn't going to like the answer.

"I'm a werewolf," he said.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"You didn't know." He sounded surprised.

"Know what?" I was getting angry. I hate twenty questions.

"Jean-Claude's animal is a wolf."

That explained Stephen the Werewolf and the black woman. "Why weren't you there the other night, Irving? Did he let you off your leash?"

"That's not fair."

He was right. It wasn't. "I'm sorry, Irving. I'm just feeling guilty because I introduced the two of you."

"I wanted to interview the Master of the City. I got my interview."

"Was it worth the price?" I said.

"No comment."

"That's my line."

He laughed. "Can you come to the Circus of the Damned? Jean-Claude has some information on the master vampire that jumped you."

"Alejandro?"

"That's the one."

"We'll be there as soon as we can, but it's going to be damn close to dawn before we can get to the Riverfront."

"Who's we?"

"A new animator I'm breaking in. He's driving." I hesitated. "Tell Jean-Claude no rough stuff tonight."

"Tell him yourself."

"Coward."

"Yes, ma'am. See you as soon as you can get here. Bye."

"Bye, Irving." I held the buzzing receiver for a few seconds, then hung up. Irving was Jean-Claude's creature. Jean-Claude could call wolves the way Mr. Oliver called snakes. The way Nikolaos had called rats, and wererats. They were all monsters. It was just a choice of flavors.

I slid back into the car. "You wanted more experience with vampires, right?" I buckled the seat belt.

"Of course," Larry said.

"Well, you're going to get it tonight."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll explain while you drive. We don't have much time before dawn." Larry threw the car in gear and peeled out of the parking lot. He looked eager in the dim glow of the dashboard. Eager and very, very young.