Flesh Circus

Chapter Seven

You could find just about anything a serious practitioner needed at Galina’s, and if your credit was good you could get a whole lot more. A neutral supply of necessities for all concerned is the least of the services a Sanctuary provides to a city’s nightside inhabitants.

She poured us tea up in her kitchen. The night pressed against the bay window over the sink, the green bank of herbs in a cast-iron shelving unit stirring slightly.

Sancs like growing things. They are gentle souls, really. It’s a shame so few people pass their entrance exams.

Galina set the tray of silverjacket ammo down on the butcher-block table. “What do you know about the last time the Cirque was here?”

Saul blew across his tea to cool it. He was looking everywhere except at me.

I stared at her for a few seconds, the chill down my back growing more pronounced. “It was the hunter before Mikhail. I know he told them not to come back until he wasn’t the hunter here either. Bad blood between him and the last Ringmaster. Or is that the same one?”

“It’s the same one. He’s been controlling the Cirque for a few generations, which means he’s nasty and smart.” Her fingers were steady on the teapot; she poured and pushed the ammo tray toward me. It was really strange to see her so pale. Not much disturbs Galina’s serenity. “With that goddamn cane of his. The last time…”

I waited while she set the teapot down, the walls echoing slightly with her distress. Sancs don’t go outside much; it’s the price they pay for being almost godlike inside their nice thick defenses. Being inside a Sanctuary’s space when they lose their cool is an uncomfortable experience at best.

Saul slurped loudly. The scar ran with prickles, like icy water on burning skin. I began checking the ammo automatically, sliding yet more extra cartridges into the loops sewn inside my coat. I could probably do this in my sleep, I’ve done it so many times.

And hell, while I was here for the second time today I might as well load up.

“There was some trouble,” Galina finally said, lowering herself down to sit on a stool opposite me. “The hunter before Mikhail was Emerson Sloane; he had a sort-of apprentice. Everything went sideways.”

Sort-of apprentice? That doesn’t happen. But there are wannabes in this business, just the same as any other. Fucking amateurs trying to get themselves killed, since they’re unfit for the job one way or another, or they’d be trained.

Silence stretched between us. I finally broke it. “Mikhail never told me about that.”

“He wasn’t an actual apprentice.” The kitchen, with its mellow shining counters and wood-faced cabinets, wavered slightly and solidified around her. “He just kept following Sloane around until Sloane gave up and began training him.”

That’s how it usually starts. My own apprenticeship hadn’t begun that way, but… Mikhail had been an exception all over.

And so, I suppose, was I. And if I was lucky, Gilberto would have vanished off my front step by the time I got home.

Galina sighed. “He got into trouble. There were some problems.”

“What type of problems?”

Her brow furrowed. “I… didn’t hear much. Sloane never opened up about it. I do know the kid ended up dead, after something terrible.”

There’s certainly no shortage of terrible things on the nightside. “And no word on what ‘something terrible’ entailed? Did it have to do with the Cirque, or—”

“I just don’t know, Jill.” She picked up her own cup, took a small sip. Her shoulders were sharp points under the robes. Some of the shaking had eased out of her. The walls had stopped quivering with etheric distress. “The Ringmaster seemed to think you had a hand in this attack, and he was… excited when he showed up. Perry was right behind him.”

Goddammit. I’ll just bet he was, with his little fingers in the pie as usual. I couldn’t help myself—a sigh to match hers came out hard on the end of the sentence. The smell of incense, dust, and sleepy power in her shop mixed uneasily with the aroma of spaghetti sauce and the fading tang of ’breed—she’d probably been at dinner when they dropped by. “What can you tell me about this trouble?”

The line between her eyebrows got deeper. “Not much that I can recall. It had to do with the apprentice and a woman over near Greenlea, I think, back when that part of town wasn’t very nice. Had to be, oh, around 1926 or so. Before the barrio moved, before the big outbreak, and before all that new money moved in and turned it into a shopping district. The kid…” She frowned. “There was something about him. I can’t remember. I’ll dig through my diaries, see if I can suss it out.”

Hm. “It’s not like you to have a bad memory.”

She gave me an exquisitely sarcastic look. “When you’ve put in almost a century of tending a Sanctuary, Jill, then we’ll talk. Mikhail and Sloane both liked things close to the vest, too. Most of the time I didn’t have a clue what either of them were up to.”

And I was no different when a case was heating up. It was my turn to shrug as I finished stowing the ammo. “Mischa was a private person, all right. I didn’t hear much about the former hunter either. Except that Sloane wasn’t of our lineage, he was part of Ben Cross’s crowd.”

“Yes. Sloane died after the outbreak in 1929.” She stared into her tea mug like it held the secrets of the universe. “We were in freefall for years. That was a bad time for any hunter.”

“Yeah.” The second-biggest demonic outbreak of the past century, 1929 was a bad year for hunters all over the United States, and it got exponentially worse in Europe ten years later. So much of what was unleashed during the two decades after ’29 is still out running around—it’s like the Middle Ages all over again, only this time we have more firepower to put things down.

Still, the firepower’s no good without people trained to use it. And quality apprentices are few and far between.

I thought again of Gilberto and hoped he was gone by the time I got home. Which might not be soon. This had all the makings of a complex situation, which meant a lot of blood and screaming. Not to mention gunfire and ugliness.

“Oh.” A sudden, abrupt movement. Galina finished trolling through her memory and blinked. “Gregory. That was the kid’s name. Something Gregory. I’ll look through my diaries.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Great. And I really have to get over to Greenlea, now that you mention it. I’ve got business there too. “Hey, has anyone been in to buy voodoo stuff lately? Anyone making a big serious purchase?”

“No. I don’t do much voodoo or Santeria here. That’s more Mama Zamba on the edge of the barrio, or Melendez. I sometimes send people to either of them.” A curious look crossed her round, pretty face. “I wonder…”

I hate going to either of them. Jesus. “Well, give ol’ Zamba a call as soon as I leave. Let her know I’ve got a few questions. It’s about time I went and scared her again.” I fished out a fifty-dollar bill. “Here’s all I’ve got on me for this load of ammo; I’ll take care of the rest when I get my municipal check. Okay?”

“You can put it on account, you know.” But instead of saying it with a grin, Galina looked troubled. “Jill, are you sure you want to go out to the Cirque?”

“I’ll go where I have to.” You should know that. “It’s just a bunch of hellbreed playing games. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“I really hope you don’t mean that,” she muttered, but she let it go.

It wasn’t like her not to get the last word in, so I left it at that. Saul finished his tea, I got a few more odds and ends, and we left her up in her kitchen, tracing the ring of spilled tea from the bottom of her cup, drawing it on the table like it might give her an answer.

Of course they would settle near the trainyards, far north of my warehouse and on the fringes of the industrial section. A cold night wind came off the river, laden with flat iron-chemical scent. It was usually a space of empty, weed-strewn lots, a few squares of concrete left over from trailers or something, and a festooning of hypodermics and debris from when it used to be a shackville. The homeless were rousted out during a huge urban renewal drive five years ago, but the drive petered out and the fencing around the lots turned that bleached color everything gets after a winter or two in the desert.

Now it was cleaned up, the fencing was taken down in some parts, replaced in others, and it was starred with lights.

Everyone who told me about the Cirque was right. It does look bigger than its sorry little caravan would ever lead you to dream of. It sprawled like a blowsy drunk on a tattered divan, cheap paste jewels glittering.

Cirque de Charnu, the painted boards on the fence barked. The bigtop was up, canvas daubed with leering clown faces and swirls of watery glitter. Faint music rode the flat, whispering wind. The smell of fried food mixed uneasily with the blood-tang of the river, and I caught the undertone of sweat and animal manure too. Shouts and laughter, and a Ferris wheel I would have sworn wasn’t part of the caravan spun like a confection of whipped cream and glass. Its winking lights were sterile eyes, and it shuddered as the wind changed. One pair of lights winked out, and I heard the faint ghost of a scream before it righted itself and went whirling merrily on.

We sat in the car overlooking the spectacle; there was a footpath down the embankment leading to the temporary parking lot, already full of vehicles. Little dust devils danced between the neat rows. The fringes of contamination and corruption were thin flabby fingers poking at each tire and dashboard.

Saul was smoking again, cherry tobacco smoke drifting out his window. The tiny bottle of holy water on a chain around his neck swirled with faint blue. “Smells like a trap,” he finally said.

“It is.” A trap for the weak or unwary. Or just for those who don’t care anymore. “You sure you want to come with me?”

A shadow crossed his face. He tapped the ash from the cigarette with a quick, angry motion.

I glanced quickly away, over the carnival. The Ferris wheel halted, its cars swinging and trembling slightly, like leaves in a soft breeze. Its gaunt gantry looked hungry, and a couple lights flickered on the verge of going out.

“I haven’t changed my mind yet.” He took another drag. His face settled against itself.

I’m not so sure about that. But I didn’t say it. “You realize we can’t interfere down there. Once we step through the gate—”

“I know the rules. You repeated ’em twice. I’m not stupid, Jill.”

“You’re right, you’re not stupid. But maybe I am.” I eyed the layout again. The alleys between the tents looked regular and even, but they also ran like ink on wet paper in the corner of my vision. I had the idea that if I looked away they would move, and snap back together in a different configuration once my gaze returned.

The music halted as the wind veered, then started again. Calliope music, faint and cheery, with screaming underneath. It sounded like a cartoon. The Ferris wheel shuddered again, and another light blinked out. It restarted, creaking, and the music swallowed any sound that might have made its way out.

I blew out between my teeth. Measured off a space on the steering wheel between two index fingers, tapped them both rapidly, a tattoo of dissatisfaction. Time’s wasting, Jill. Get moving.

When I reached for the door-handle he did too. The Pontiac sat in shadows, her paint job glistening dully. It was a cleaner gleam than the cars in the lot below, or the bright winking lures beyond.

The music struggled up to us as we made our way down the hill, my bootheels occasionally ringing against a stone, Saul silent and graceful. Between the rows of cars, windshields already filmed with dust, gravel shifting under our feet. There was no need to be quiet.

There wasn’t much of a crowd milling around the ticket booth. The scattered people were mostly normal, and they looked dazed. I kept my mouth shut, watching for a few moments as a round brunette in her mid-thirties tilted her head, listening. The calliope music sharpened, predatory glee running under its surface, and she finally stepped up to the booth and handed over a fistful of something. It looked like wet pennies, and the Trader manning the booth—female, heart-shaped face and short black Bettie Page bangs, big dark eyes, and a pair of needle-sharp fangs dimpling her candy-red lower lip—made a complex gesture, then stamped the woman’s hand and waved her past.

Saul let out a short sigh. We strode through the confused, each of them averting their eyes like we were some sort of plague. A couple Traders milled with the normals, uncertainly. Most of them flinched and drew into the shadows when they saw me.

The Trader in the booth studied us. She opened her mouth, and I saw all her teeth were sharp and pointed, not just the fangs.

I beat her to the punch. “I’m here on business, Trader. Where’s the Ringmaster?”

She shrugged slim, bare flour-white shoulders, her rhinestone-studded Lycra top moving supple over high, perky breasts. Visibly reconsidered when I didn’t respond. “Around and about. Probably in the bigtop. Want your hand stamped?”

I snorted. “Of course not. Come on, Saul.” I took two steps to the side, heading for the turnstile.

Her sloe eyes narrowed. “Just what are you—” The words died as I stared at her. The corruption blooming over her was strong, and I’d bet diamonds she had weapons under the sightline of the flimsy booth. She tried again. “You can come in. But I’m not so sure he can.” She actually pointed at Saul with one lacquered-yellow fingernail. It was amazing—I wondered how she wiped herself with claws that long.

Oh, yeah? Quit pointing at my Were, bitch. “He’s with me. Go back to seducing suicides,” I snapped. We strode past, through the clicking turnstile. Each separate bar of the stile ended in a cheap chrome ram’s head, lips drawn back and blunt teeth blackened with grime. The Trader didn’t say anything else, but the swirl of corruption lying over the entire complex of canvas and wood tightened.

The spider knows the fly’s home.

I didn’t like that thought. I also didn’t like how the air was suddenly close and warm, almost balmy with a slight edge of humidity. It even smelled wrong—no clean tang of dry desert, no metallic ring from the river or any of the hundred other little components that make up a subconscious map of my city. You spend enough time breathing a place and it’ll get into your bones—and when it isn’t what it should be, that’s when the uneasiness starts right below the hackles.

It was also—surprise, surprise—more crowded inside than out. There wasn’t a crush, but it was work threading my way through. The flat shine of the dusted on Trader irises, dazed incomprehension on the shuffling normals, rubbing shoulders and shuffling feet. I saw men in pajamas, a woman in filmy lingerie with her hair in pink curlers, a fiftyish man in work clothes carrying a dripping-wet hammer and wandering walleyed and fishmouthed like he was six again.

The midway bloomed around us. Pasteboard and flashing lights, buzzing strings of electric bulbs.

“Throw the ball, win a prize!” This was an actual ’breed, female in a red cotton peasant dress. A sleepy-eyed teenager stopped in front of her; she licked her pale lips and smiled at him. Her white, white hands touched his shoulders in a butterfly’s caress, but she saw me watching and pushed him aside. He stumbled and rejoined the flow of the crowd.

“Catch a fish!” A Trader in suspenders, a white wifebeater, and a newsboy hat, his ears coming to high hairy points, motioned at a crystal bowl. The fish inside glittered too sharply to be anything but metallic, globules of clear oil bubbling from their mouths. “Win a dream! Lovely dream, freshly colored! Catch a fish!”

A woman hesitated before putting her hand in the bowl. I silently urged her not to, and turned away before she could make her decision. There was a wet, deep crunch. The fish-catcher’s savage cry of triumph rose behind me, and I let out a sharp breath, my stomach turning over.

This was what the Cirque did. It separated the weak and suicidal from the just vaguely disaffected. I caught sight of a young woman, mascara dribbling down her cheeks on a flood of tears, mouthing words that seemed to fit the dim seaweed sound of the calliope. Something like “Camptown Races,” married to a more savage beat.

Doo-dah, dooo dah.… She shivered, and walked slowly toward an open tent exhaling a flood of beeps and boops like a video arcade. God alone knew what waited for her in there.

Funny, the music should be louder. I shivered, kept pacing. They parted in front of me like heavy molasses, drawing slowly away.

The normals didn’t look at me, lost in whatever the calliope was whispering. But the Traders flinched aside, and the ’breed sometimes bared their teeth, or fangs. One, dolled up like a fortune-teller and outside a tent swathed with fluttering nylon scarves, a chipped crystal ball on the round satin-draped table in front of her, actually snarled.

I stopped and stared at her for a good twenty seconds, unblinking, before she dropped her yellow gaze. Her eyes matched her tongue, a jaundiced, scaled thing that flickered past thin lips and dabbed the point of her chin before reeling back into her mouth.

“There’s a lot of them,” Saul murmured. He kept close, the comforting heat of him touching my back. The silver in my hair was shifting, and the carved ruby at my throat spat a single, bloody spark just as he spoke.

“There always are.” And when the sun rises, maybe a third of them will make it home safe. Those who decide they do want to live after all—or those smart enough to run like hell and make no agreements. Even implicit ones.

And here I thought I was such a cynic. Probably a lot less than a third would get home.

Lean four-legged shapes slunk in the shadows. Their colorless eyes flashed, and they followed us through the midway. The Ferris wheel rocked at one end, another light winked out, and I heard a shapeless scream, like a man waking from a nightmare in a cold bath of sweat. The calliope music surged, swallowing it. Paper ruffled at our feet—wrappers still hot from popcorn or sticky with cotton candy, gnawed sticks still holding traces of corn-dog mustard or clinging caramel. A man’s gold Patek Philippe glittered, flung carelessly on the packed, scuffed dirt. Thick electric cables creaked back and forth under the slow warm breeze.

The entrance to the bigtop was huge, easily as big as a triple garage door. Oiled canvas rubbed against the ropes; tattered pennants fluttered and snapped on seven high-peaked poles. Crowd-noise swelled, and for the first time I heard the rumble of Helletöng bruising the air.

A gangling scarecrow of a male hellbreed lolled in a chair next to a post holding one end of the tattered red velvet rope barring the way. His top hat was pulled down over his eyes, and his spiderlike fingers—six on each hand, and a thumb too, bones and tendons flickering under the mottled skin—twitched as I halted.

I eyed him. Threadbare, skintight burlap pants straining every time a skinny leg moved. Biceps so thin I could probably have spanned them with thumb and forefinger. For all that, it was a hellbreed, and usually they aren’t so flagrantly unhuman.

Usually they’re beautiful, and they like to show it. Except Perry. This one could be a surprise too.

I stepped forward, my heels clicking on gravel, and eyed him. The hat lifted a little, and mad silvery eyes gleamed under a hank of silky dirt-dark hair. The fingers twitched again.

I held the ’breed’s gaze for maybe fifteen long seconds, the calliope music drifting up around me in skeins of etheric foulness. The hounds, slinking in the shadows, drew nearer. Saul didn’t make a restless movement, but I could guess maybe he wanted to.

“Cut the act.” Silver jangled, underscoring my words. “Get me the Ringmaster.”

The ’breed tipped his head back further. A pointed chin, hollow cheeks—he was a walking skeleton with mottled skin stretched drum-tight over bones, and I suddenly knew what he was. The knowledge made my hands ache for a weapon again; I controlled the urge.

“Are you sure you want to see him? He’s not in a good mood.” The ’breed smirked, pointed yellow teeth flashing for just a moment. Strings of thick saliva bubbled behind his lips. I was almost sorry I’d eaten.

“Snap inspection, plague-bearer. And the mood you should be worrying about right now is mine. I’m giving you less than two seconds to haul that skinny ass of yours up, and less than ten to bring me the Ringmaster. Or I start shooting ’breed and Traders. Your choice.”

It was a nice bluff. Technically, a hunter can snap-inspect any part of the Cirque at any time, and serve summary judgment on any ’breed or Trader caught breaking the rules—for example, pressuring a victim into making a bargain, or in my city, playing with anyone under eighteen. That’s pretty much why the Cirque obeys the strictures—first there’s the hostage, and then there’s us, swallowing bile and watching, waiting for them to step out of line.

Of course, people vanish all the time. It’s a goddamn epidemic, and whenever the Cirque finally leaves town there’s a lull in exorcisms, disappearances, and other nastiness. They eat all they can hold in each town, I guess. And with the pickings so easy once the calliope starts singing, they would be foolish to take any unwilling meat.

Hellbreed aren’t fools.

He jolted to his feet, elbows and knees moving in ways human joints weren’t designed to, and I almost twitched toward a gun. But he just capered over the red velvet rope and into the bigtop, leaving his chair rocking back and forth, a bloom of powdery yellow dust left behind, eating little holes in the painted wood.

“Plague-bearer?” Saul murmured.

“You don’t want to touch that stuff.” My nerves were scraped raw, my back crawling with the thought of so many of Hell’s citizens in one place, a cancer in the middle of my vulnerable city.

My apprentice-ring cooled, turning to ice on my finger. It twitched, sharply, twice. It was the first time since I’d met the Cirque outside town that it had made any sort of motion at all.

I tilted my head, listening. The calliope music surged, screaming puffs through chrome-throated pipes. I shut it away, despite the plucking underneath the music—come in, come in, lay your troubles down, play a game, become one of us, one of us, just give in, stop struggling.

My attention turned, coasting through the flood of sensory information. Dust, hot frying fat, screams, chewing noises, stamping feet, a horse’s screaming whinny.

And a long, drawn-out rattling gasp.

I came back to myself with a jolt, spun on my heel, and leapt into a run. Saul’s footsteps were soundless behind me.

The bigtop blurred past on one side, yards and yards of canvas. It drew away like a wave threatening to crest, and I plunged into a network of tents and alleys, half-lit. Here was one of the older parts of the carnival—the air was thick with a reek of spilled sex, and the tent flaps were always half-open. Moans and ghastly shrieks ribboned past, the calliope suddenly crooning. Traders with gem-bright eyes, hellbreed with seashell hips and candied mouths, lounging in the entrances to their tents, seducing and beckoning—

I veered off to the left, my apprentice-ring pulling like a fish on a thin line. The tents gave way to trailers, and I passed the limousine sitting still and polished under a rigged-up canvas canopy. The headlights flickered once, green, as I flashed past.

A huge silver Airstream rocked as I left the ground in a flying kick, etheric force booming through the scar and filling my veins with sick heat. My boot hit the door, which crumpled and exploded in. A terrible, sour-sewer smell puffed past me, and I heard Saul’s surprised half-yell.

The trailer was small, and every surface inside was crawling. Little bits of darkness moved, fluttering chitinous legs and wings twitched as the roaches spilled over every surface. A pinprick of laser-red light glowed on the back of every goddamn insect, and they startled into flight as I let out a half-swallowed, childlike cry of revulsion.

Hey, they were bugs, and they surprised me.

The tide of insect life streamed past me, little hairy legs touching and brushing. Saul’s coughing growl warned me.

I couldn’t worry about the inside of the trailer just at the moment. There was something behind me, and Saul barely managed to get the warning out in time.

I threw myself back and down, landing hard on the two portable wooden steps leading up to the crumpled door. I’d blown a hole in the side of the trailer, and I shot the Ringmaster four times as he hung in the air over me, the crystal knob atop his cane ringing a high piercing note as a silverjacket bullet bounced off or past it, whining until it smashed into the side of his leering, screaming face. It even knocked his hat off.

He dropped straight down. My knees jerked up, I rolled backward down the steps. My shoulder grated hard and popped against straining wood, the edge of a step biting the back of my neck before I made a lunging, fishlike twist and was suddenly, irrationally on my feet but facing the wrong way, whirling and dropping to one knee as the whip flicked out. The silver flechettes tied to the end of its length jingled sweetly before they flayed flesh from the Ringmaster’s wrist, and his cane clattered away, the crystal bouncing down first as if it was too heavy for the laws of physics.

The ’breed was bleeding, gushes of thin black ichor flooding out from every hole I’d blown in his tough shell. The roaches swarmed him, the pinpricks of red on their back dividing as they multiplied, and he screamed in Helletöng, a sound like the rusted sinews of the world groaning. The fabric of reality bowed around him in concentric circles, and the little insects burst, clattering shells puffing into sick green smoke as they hit the dust. The Ringmaster shouldered his way up out of the curls of vapor, his eyes dripping pumpkin hellfire, and snarled. The stairs splintered and groaned.

When you get to see under the carapace of beauty, the brain shudders aside from their alienness. A hunter who’s been to Hell has seen this before, and it gives you a slight edge. You don’t run screaming-insane every time they shed their human seeming and show the twisted thing underneath.

But it’s awful close.

I remained on one knee, instinct fighting with cold logic. If he leapt for me, my chances were better here, where I was centered and had some clear space, than if I tried to get to my feet now. Training won out, and I stayed where I was, gun in my right hand and whip in the other, shaken free with a jingling sound. Saul was to one side, still growling but staying out of the way—just where he should have been.

A choked rattle echoed inside the gaunt silver trailer. My apprentice-ring cooled, a band of ice on my third left finger. The Ringmaster snarled and doubled over, falling to the ground with a wet writhing thump. Black ichor splashed, and the entire Cirque stilled, the faint ever-present calliope music skipping a beat. It limped and wheezed, gaps opening between the notes.

What the hell?

The Ringmaster screamed, and his cane quivered. The thin cry was echoed from inside the trailer, and I was suddenly sure that something else was happening I’d better take a look at.

I uncoiled, force pulled through the scar, and cleared the busted stairs and the Ringmaster in one leap. Landed on my toes, my center of gravity pulled up high and tight, and plunged into the trailer.

A pale shape lay, seizure bowing it up into a hoop, on the frowsty shelf-bed. It was the hostage, and just as I reached the side of the bed, wading through a drift of empty clicking shells and candy bar wrappers, the Trader began to rattle deep down in his chest.

Oh, fuck.

The hostage was dying. And if he shuffled off the mortal coil now, we were looking at a seriously fucked-up situation.

I dropped the whip, shoved the gun back in its holster, and leapt for the bed.