Flesh Circus

Chapter Nine

The ’breed named Helene had died in a gaudy tent painted with screaming-red broken-open pomegranates and big stalks of green vegetable. After a few moments I identified the green stuff as leeks, and weird creeping laughter crawled up my throat, was strangled, and died away. “So what was this Helene’s act?”

“Fruit seller?” Saul piped up, and a great scalding wave of relief went through me. He sounded okay.

Perry, a respectful distance away, actually sniggered. It was the sound of a popular kid in high school tittering in the back of the room. “Hermaphrodite.”

Suddenly the leeks and pomegranates made sense. “A hermaphrodite hellbreed?”

His bland blond face split in a wide grin. “Hell has its freaks too. Here is where they prove their worth.”

Which was another lovely thought.

Troy pushed aside the spangled curtain over the door-opening. “In h-here.”

“A stuttering barker?” I had to know. “How did you—”

He half-turned, his dusted eyes glittering sharply. “Step right up!” His face contorted, and a thin thread of cold slid down my back. Instead of a piping stammer, what came out was a rich, seductive baritone. “See the half-man, half-woman, all loveliness! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!”

I folded my arms. “That’s what you Traded for?”

He shrugged. “H-Helene t-taught me. L-l-like s-s-s-singing. Sh-sh-she was n-n-n-n—”

Oh, my God, is he about to say “nice”? Now I’ve heard everything.

“Spare me your love song,” Perry cut in. “What happened?”

For once I agreed with him, but I might’ve liked to hear more.

“It was a s-slow n-night.” The Trader spoke very slowly, trying to enunciate each word clearly. “I w-was b-barking, b-but there were n-n-no t-t-takers. I w-was d-d-doing my b-best. F-first n-night’s always s-s-slow—”

“Get. To the. Point.” Perry tapped his foot again.

“Shut up and let him talk, Pericles.” This is going to take even longer if you keep making him nervous.

“But of course, my dear. Anything for you.” The indigo still hadn’t left his whites, veining through like cracks in glazed porcelain. His suit fluttered slightly at the edges, white linen mouthed by the warm damp breeze redolent with the smell of fried grease.

“She s-s-sc-screamed.” The Trader was pale as milk, his unreliable face twisting as he tried to get the words out. “I th-thought a r-r-r-rube was g-g-getting n-nasty. B-but they d-d-don’t usually. S-s-s-so I w-w-went in.” He shuddered, the movement rippling through his skinny frame. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “Th-th-there were b-b-bugs.”

Bugs? “Flies? Or mosquitoes?”

Hey, you can’t ever trust them to tell the truth.

“R-r-roaches.” Another shudder. His red suspenders actually creaked. “All over. W-with r-red spots.” He ducked into the tent and I followed, Saul behind me as close as my shadow. I had a moment’s worth of worry—Perry was right behind my Were.

Jesus. This is getting ridiculous.

It certainly was.

The smell hit me between one step and the next. They rot fast when they go, just like Traders. There was a wide greasy stain on the small strip of planking serving as a stage. The rest of the place was scattered with pillows and rugs, a bargain-basement impression of a harem helped along by the rusted glass-and-iron hookahs scattered around. Each pipe was at least four feet high, scalloped and decorated to within an inch of its life. Frayed tassels hung everywhere, and behind the stage hung a tapestry of trees and rivers that shifted, its stitches running over each other with a faint sound of needles against fabric.

“It looks like a whorehouse,” Saul muttered, and I heartily agreed.

“Have you been in one lately, cat?” Perry inquired sweetly.

“Perry?” I checked the circuit of the tent, examined the stage’s raw lumber. Three red satin cushions were covered in thin black gunk dried to a crust.

“Yes, my dear?” Silky-smooth, but he didn’t look at me.

“Shut the fuck up.” I inhaled deeply, wished I hadn’t. Under the reek of sex, tobacco, and marijuana lay the rusted-copper tang of blood and a breath of… what was that?

Cigar smoke. Candy. And rum. It was very faint, fading even as I inhaled deeply again, trying to catch another whiff. Now that’s interesting.

“I was only asking.” Perry eased into the tent, his lip curling. “Such petty games played here.”

“As opposed to the ones played out at the Monde?” It was my turn to inquire sweetly. “If you’re not going to be helpful, you can wait outside.”

His tongue flickered over white teeth, a flash of wet cherry-red. “I can be singularly helpful, for your sake.”

Oh, I’ll just bet. “Good. You’re going to stay here and keep an eye on the hostage. I’ve got other business tonight.”

“I might have business too.”

The scar turned hot, and a spill of poisonous delight threaded up my arm. “Too bad. Now that you’ve seen the crime scene, you can run along.”

“Dismissed by my lady.” He sighed, but the scar tweaked.

So he was getting to the point of pulling my chain, was he? Hellbreed hate being outfoxed, and they hate being outfoxed by their own cleverness even more. If Perry hadn’t been so eager to use a measure of what he thought was his newfound psychological leverage on me, he wouldn’t have lost every bit of his hold—including the ironclad agreement to have me in every month. My time for his power; that had been the deal—and when he welshed, it was his power for nothing.

Except I had to step carefully, or I would get trapped again. And he would make me pay for every insult I offered him.

Still, that wasn’t a reason not to twit him while I could. And I wanted him out of the way for the next ten minutes. The stuttering Trader looked ready to die from fright, and couldn’t get out a coherent sentence.

I understood. I didn’t sympathize, but I completely understood.

“I’m not your lady or your hunter, Pericles. I’m the hunter of Santa Luz and I’m telling you to keep a close watch on the Ringmaster and that hostage. You’re responsible for their good behavior. And not so incidentally, for the hostage’s continued survival.” I was apparently staring at the stain on the stage. My attention was all on him, though. The Trader crouched with his face level to the planking, peeping up at the red satin pillows like a kid looking through the banister for Santa Claus. “Now be a good little hellspawn and run along.”

The air tightened, and I wondered if this was going to be the time that Perry pushed it. It was getting more and more likely the longer this went on.

But apparently, he was just as invested in keeping the Cirque under wraps as I was. I was banking on that. So often, I was banking on the flimsiest things to keep him from seriously fucking around with me.

It is the woman, has the advantage in situations like this, milaya. You just remember that. Mikhail’s voice, a memory equal parts pleasure and pain.

I was hoping, like always, that it was true.

“Very well,” Perry finally said. “Happy hunting, my dear. I expect this… situation… to be resolved shortly.”

“The longer you stand here jawing, the less likely that is.” Unless you’ve got some elegant little finger in this pie, which is very possible. I’m not ruling anything out.

But still… voodoo. The one thing pretty much no hellbreed would be involved in.

Perry’s presence leached out of the room slowly, like an invisible heavy gas. The Trader still crouched, peering up at the stage, and I sighed.

“So, this Helene. Did she have any enemies?” I was fully aware of the irony of the question.

“O-only th-the u-usual.” The stammer did get better with Perry out of the room. The ferret-faced blond shot me a glance that could have meant anything. “You’re n-not going to l-look for whoever d-d-did this.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I am.” I studied the stage again, and suddenly saw how Helene probably lay down—in a way guaranteed to show off the goods to the maximum number of people in the room. “Was she between showings? In here alone?”

“N-no. Th-there were r-rubes. Not very m-many.” He was damn near peppy with Perry out of the picture, and I suddenly thought I liked him better when he was scared. The self-serving little weasel glint in Trader eyes always makes me want to reach for a weapon.

It’s that same weasel glint I used to see in my mother’s eyes when one of her boyfriends was on the rampage. A cold calculation—how much can I get? How can I use something else to get out of this? What’s in it for me?

“Sh-she was just a ’b-b-breed. I know what y-you h-hunters are l-like.”

You do, huh? Well. That’s nice. “Is that so.” There were tiny pinpricks dotting out from the stain in random twin loops—cockroach tracks. They stopped cold about two feet from the body.

Little skittering roach-tracks. Did they vanish in a puff of green smoke too?

“So what did the… the rubes see? Any of them still around?” Did any of them get home safe, either?

“D-d-don’t kn-know. Was b-busy trying to g-get the b-b-b-bugs—” His face flushed. “Bugs. Away.”

“Did the bugs do that?” I pointed at the stain. “Was she making any sound? Choking?”

“S-screaming. And th-they r-ripped h-her ap-p-part. N-n-not m-much l-left.”

I questioned him a little more, but he either knew nothing or covered it really well. The way he crouched right next to the stage was unnerving, and the story was even more so. Bugs descending out of nowhere, and an invisible force ripping a hellbreed to pieces? Or strangling a Trader?

There may have been a time when I might’ve decided to let that pass. But if the hostage ended up biting it… it just didn’t bear thinking about. The Cirque would explode out of its boundaries, and I’d have a hell of a time getting things back under control again.

Get it, Jill? A Hell of a time? Arf arf.

Whoever was doing this probably had a beef with hellbreed or the right idea. But they were going about it in exactly the wrong way.