Defender Raptor (Protection, Inc: Defenders, #2)

by Chant, Zoe

  Renu offered the white rat to the little girl. “Would you like to pet him for luck?”

  Giggling, the little girl petted the white rat.

  “Now pick a number, odds or evens, and either red or black. If you get them all wrong, I keep the five. If you get just odd/even or red/black right, I give you seven-fifty. If you get both of those right but not the number, I give you ten. And if you get the number right... That’s when you really start winning.” Renu indicated a sign that explained the details. “Ready to choose?”

  “Seven, odds, and red!” said the little girl.

  Renu ceremoniously placed the white rat in the center of the wheel and gave it a spin. The rat began to run around the wheel as the crowd laughed and cheered and urged him on. Finally, when the wheel came to a stop, the rat flopped down in a slot.

  “And it’s black and... eight!” Renu shook her head. “You were so close. Want to try again?”

  “Yes!” exclaimed the little girl.

  “Nope,” said her mother. “Come on, Chely, let’s get some cotton candy.”

  As they walked away, Renu called out, “Who else wants to try their luck with the rat?”

  Dali whispered to Merlin, “Do you really need a shifter to do this? Couldn’t you train a regular rat to stop when you give it a signal?”

  Merlin smiled. “Yes.”

  Right on cue, Larry Duffy said loudly, “This is a scam! She’s signaling the rat when to stop.”

  Renu folded her arms. “I assure you, I am not. The rat stops where the rat wants to stop.”

  “Sure he does,” sneered Larry.

  “Place a bet and watch me closely,” Renu offered. “If you spot me signaling, you’ll automatically win.”

  “Okay!” said Larry. He began digging into his pants pocket.

  The mark frowned. “Wait. The signal is probably very subtle. You won’t see it.”

  Larry turned his sneer on him. “I’m not blind!”

  “She has to know what the bet is to signal the rat,” said a teenage boy, then chuckled. “What if you wrote it down and just showed it to the rat?”

  Renu looked visibly alarmed at this suggestion. “There’s no need for that. I’ll hold up my hands so you can watch them.”

  “She probably taps her foot,” said the mark. He nodded at the boy. “Yeah. I like that idea.”

  “Sir, this is ridiculous,” said Renu.

  The mark stepped forward, looming over her. Aggressively, he said, “You promised to accept any bet up to a five thousand dollars!”

  “Yes, but—”

  The mark took off his watch. “This is a five thousand dollar watch.”

  “I can only accept cash,” said Renu, and smirked at him like she’d won.

  The crowd murmured, clearly turning on her. A few people yelled, “Take his watch!” and “Write down your bet!” The teenage boy’s voice rose up clearly, “Show your bet to the rat!”

  Pressing his advantage, the mark said, “If you don’t let me bet my watch and write down my bet for the rat, I’ll call the cops right now and bust you for running a crooked gambling operation. And then you’ll lose a lot more than five thousand dollars.”

  Renu looked furious and trapped. Finally, she shouted, “Fine!”

  The teenage boy offered the mark a small notebook and a pen.

  “Turn your back,” said the mark.

  Renu turned her back.

  Grinning, the mark wrote down BLACK EVENS 30 on a page. He showed it to the crowd, then, smirking, said, “Oh, and we need to let the rat see too.”

  The teenage boy scooped up the rat and held it in front of the page, then popped it back down on the wheel.

  The mark folded the paper and replaced it in his pocket. “You can turn around now.”

  Renu turned around. She spun the wheel, saying, “Around and around and around it goes, where it stops, nobody knows!”

  The white rat ran around the wheel. Dali knew what had to happen, but she still watched with all the excitement of a fan watching her favorite team playing a tournament. So did the crowd.

  The wheel slowly came to a stop, and the rat flopped down on a red slot labeled 5.

  The crowd gasped.

  “What?!” exclaimed the mark.

  “What was your bet?” Renu inquired.

  “This is bullshit!” yelled the mark. “You cheated!”

  “What was the bet?” Renu asked the crowd.

  “Black evens thirty!” the crowd yelled.

  Renu spread her hands. “What a shame. Still, no one can say where the rat will stop. May I have your watch, sir?”

  “No!” shouted the mark.

  The crowd’s fickle attention turned on him. Now they were murmuring and scowling at him.

  “Sir, do you believe the rat can read?” Renu asked.

  The mark scowled at her. “What?”

  As if she was explaining things to a small, slow child, Renu said, “If I’m signaling the rat, I need to know what the bet was. I didn’t see the bet, though the rat did. Do you think the rat read your bet and cheated you all by itself?

  Confused and angry, the mark said, “You cheated some other way!”

  Renu held out her hand. “Your watch, sir. Or do I have to call the police?”

  The mark looked around. The crowd was glaring at him. Several of them meaningfully took out their phones.

  “Fine!” The mark took off his watch and flung it at Renu’s face.

  She neatly caught it, then tucked it into her pocket. As the mark stormed away to the sound of the crowd’s laughter, cheers, and jeers, she said, “Who’d like to be the next to play rat roulette? I suggest that you don’t bet more than you can afford to lose.”

  As people eagerly waved bills at her, Dali sat back. Softly, to Merlin, she said, “I feel like I watched an entire performance. The teenage boy was another plant, right?”

  “Bobby Duffy,” Merlin said. “Larry’s nephew.”

  She wanted to disapprove. Swindling was swindling, even if the victim could afford it and was terrible. But she caught herself admitting, “I kind of enjoyed watching that.”

  Merlin grinned. “I thought you might. It is fun. Even if it’s not something you’d ever do yourself.”

  There was a burst of applause, and Renu handed a member of the crowd a bill, shaking her head ruefully.

  “So they get to win sometimes?” Dali asked.

  “Of course. That watch could pay for everyone else to win today. The only reason they made sure the little girl didn’t win was to set up Larry calling it a scam. If the girl or her mom had looked like losing would have upset them, then Renu would have made sure it was the next person who lost.”

  “Very clever. Did you ever run rat roulette?”

  Merlin grinned. “All the time, once I was old enough.”

  “I feel like I’m learning so much about you right now,” Dali said. The moment the words were out, she felt awkward. It sounded like the kind of line you’d say on a date. She supposed it was because they’d eaten lunch together and were about to see a show, so it felt a bit... date-like.

  He gave her a sharp glance, then a slightly forced chuckle. “You already knew I was from a crime circus.”

  “Sure, but watching that scam showed me what you need to run something like that—you have to be spontaneous, quick-witted, able to improvise, a fast talker, and a good judge of people.”

  “And have a rat that can read.”

  “That too. So, were you born into—”

  “Oh, hey,” Merlin said, checking his watch. “Show’s going to start soon.”

  Dali looked around. Nobody seemed in any great hurry, and Renu was still taking bets. “I think—”

  Merlin began to talk quickly as he grabbed the empty containers and started tossing them into a trashcan with NBA-worthy accuracy. “I can’t wait for you to see the show. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Especially since you love cats. The Fabulous Flying Chameleons are the only circus in the world that ha
s a cat act. Not big cats, regular cats. They’re actually the Zimmerman family, who are also notable for having spent the last twenty years feuding with the Richelieu family, who are French poodle shifters. Nobody knows exactly how it started, but I think...”

  As he began to spin out an elaborate theory, Dali’s mind was occupied with what he wasn’t saying.

  He’s hiding in plain sight, she thought. He talks so much about the circus that you don’t notice what he’s not saying about the circus. Even his own teammates didn’t know they were shifters.

  In fact, she remembered, his own teammates hadn’t even realized the circus was real!

  Dali tried to recall what he’d ever said about how he’d ended up there. “I was raised in a circus,” he’d said. Not “I was born in a circus.”

  He doesn’t lie, she thought. He just steers you to assume what he wants you to assume. Like Renu saying, “Do you think the rat can read?” to make everyone think that since rats can’t read, the game couldn’t have been rigged.

  “Anyway, you’ll see both families perform,” Merlin concluded. She guiltily jerked her attention back to him. “You’ll have to tell me which you like better, the dogs or the cats.”

  “I can tell you that right now,” she said.

  He laughed and led her into the big top. “The best seats aren’t in the front row. You want to sit close enough to see the details, but far enough to see the big picture. Here you go.”

  They sat down together. Dali did have an excellent view. Surrounded by excited people in couples and families and groups and alone, murmuring and crunching on snacks, her excitement rose. It wasn’t just that she was about to see a circus performance for the very first time, or that it was a unique shifter circus, or even that it would be the first step in getting her necklace back. It was that like the rat roulette, this would be her chance to learn more about Merlin.

  “All I need is a box of crackerjacks,” she remarked.

  He instantly produced one. She laughed, opened it, and offered it to him. They were still munching when the lights went down.

  CHAPTER 9

  The lights came up on Maximilian Doubek, the ringmaster, magnificent in his red waistcoat and immense curled moustache. “Welcome to the Fabulous Flying Chameleons, where humans and animals come together to bring you the most astounding—the most amazing—the most fabulous spectacle you’ve ever seen!”

  Max went on, but Merlin barely heard him. He felt like he was drowning in nostalgia, both good and bad. It was as if he could see his entire past life, right there in the center of the ring.

  Why past? inquired his raptor. You could have it now!

  His raptor’s words hit Merlin like a punch to the gut. His inner dinosaur was right. Merlin could go back to the circus. He’d known that already, but it was a completely different thing to know it as an abstract possibility, and to know it with all the glory and fun of the circus right there in front of him.

  Dali nudged him in the side with her elbow. That was a touch from a very non-erotic part of the body, through two layers of cloth, and yet it felt as sensual as if she’d slipped her bare hand under his shirt. Then she leaned in, so close that her cheek brushed against his hair, and whispered right in his ear, “Is that guy the white rat?”

  Her breath was warm on his skin, like a caress.

  Turn around and kiss her, suggested his raptor.

  Merlin wanted to. He really, really wanted to. For a dizzying moment, he couldn’t think of a single reason not to. Then he came to his senses. Sure, they’d flirted a bit. But there had been a lot of water under the bridge after that. Water that contained a velociraptor. He needed to check in with Dali or at least do some more flirting first to see if she was still interested, not just randomly kiss her in the middle of a circus performance which was also a part of his job protecting her and finding her necklace.

  Kiss her, urged his raptor. Kiss her, kiss her, KISSSSSSSS HER!

  Not now, he managed.

  Belatedly recalling Dali’s question, he whispered back, “Yeah, Max—the ringmaster—is the roulette rat.”

  “And now for the Wheel! Of! DEATH!!!” Max declared.

  Stagehands brought out a target wheel, which they ceremoniously placed in the center of the stage. With a dramatic gesture, the ringmaster announced, “Please give a hand to our lovely and courageous target girl, Tawny Lyon!”

  “That’s your friend Natalie, right? Love her stage name,” Dali whispered with a snicker.

  “Natalie doesn’t have a stage name,” Merlin said. “Tawny Lyon is a lion shifter. All the big cats have names like Leopold and Leona and—anyway, Tawny’s not a target girl. Max screwed up and announced the wrong...”

  Tawny Lyon walked onstage, smiling and waving. Merlin watched, bewildered, as the stagehands bound her to the wheel.

  Maybe Natalie got bored and decided to do something different, suggested his raptor.

  Not a chance, replied Merlin.

  Natalie never missed a show, and she loved this act. She lived in the moment, and as she was always both enjoying and trying to perfect her performances, she never found them boring.

  Maybe she has the flu, Merlin thought.

  Then he realized something that made her absence even more unsettling. Tawny was built on Amazonian proportions, while Natalie was short and slim. If Tawny had crammed herself into Natalie’s costume for the knife-throwing act, it would be bursting at the seams. But it wasn’t. It fit Tawny perfectly.

  They’d made a new target girl costume just for Tawny. Natalie wasn’t just taking one night off. She’d been replaced—in this act, at least.

  What was going on?

  Max set the Wheel of Death spinning. Tawny spun around and around, now upside down, now right side up, but always keeping a smile on her face.

  “Oof,” murmured Dali. “I’m good with boats, but that’s a bit much.”

  “I tried it once. I threw up,” Merlin admitted.

  “And now for our knife-throwers!” Max declaimed.

  The spotlight swung up and up, until it caught a flock of flying squirrels in full flight. They glided over the heads of the audience, furry flaps of skin stretched out and black eyes gleaming in the light. The spotlight followed them as they glided downward, over the ring, and past Tawny, still spinning on the wheel. As the first squirrel passed in front of her, it threw a tiny knife.

  The audience, enraptured, was utterly silent; the thock of the blade striking the wood was clearly audible as the knife hit home directly over her head. Each squirrel threw a tiny knife as it passed her, until her body was outlined in miniature blades.

  The audience went wild. They yelled, clapped, squealed, and stamped their feet, and Dali was right there with them. It was a beautiful sight to see.

  Max stopped the wheel, leaving Tawny right side up. The stagehands unbound her. She stepped away, leaving her silhouette in knives on the board, and held out her arms. The flying squirrels swung around in a tight circle. One by one, they landed on her outstretched arms, until all but one of the flock had settled down. The last squirrel landed on her head. She sank down in a curtsey, careful not to disturb the squirrels.

  The audience burst into delirious cheers and applause. But Merlin couldn’t drink it in the way he wanted to. He frowned as Tawny walked carefully offstage, still covered in squirrels.

  “Knife-throwing flying squirrels,” Dali whispered, her soft voice full of glee.

  “They’re the Flying Fratellis,” Merlin said absently. “That squirrel with the white-tipped tail—that’s Fausto Fratelli. He and I used to have one hell of a feud going on.”

  “How come?” Dali whispered.

  And that was yet another aspect of his past that Merlin didn’t want to get into. Yet. “Watch this, you’ll love it.”

  The Zesty Zimmermans marched out in single file, in order of size. Zachariah Zimmerman, an immensely fluffy and rather lion-like orange cat, led them. He was followed by Zillah Zimmerman, an only slightly less i
mmensely fluffy calico. A sequence of fluffy cousins, aunts, uncles, and children followed: tabbies and tortoiseshells, whites and blacks, splotched and spotted, waving their tails as they marched in perfect precision. The last one had to be Zoe, who hadn’t been old enough to perform the last time Merlin had seen the show, but who proudly brought up the rear as a teeny calico furball.

  Dali gasped aloud, along with the rest of the audience. As the cats marched in formation, creating kaleidoscope-like patterns within the ring, his gaze was on her rather than the Zimmermans. Her mouth was open and her eyes sparkled with delight. Merlin drank in the sight of her uncomplicated joy. That was what he loved about the circus: it made people happy.

  Well, the people it didn’t steal from or cheat, anyway.

  The Zimmermans were followed by a crowd-pleasing riding act, in which French poodles rode horses and did tricks on them, then the cats rode on poodles and did the same tricks, and finally the flying squirrels rode on cats and did the tricks again. For the grand finale, the squirrels rode the cats who were riding the poodles who were riding the horses.

  “The horses are the Outstanding Ortegas,” Merlin whispered. “The poodles are the Remarkable Richelieus, the cats are the Zesty Zimmermans, and the squirrels are the Flying Fratellis.”

  He enjoyed Dali’s delighted laughter as he explained to her, in the human acts which followed, which of the horses and poodles and cats and squirrels were also clowns and jugglers and acrobats. But she had to nudge him to get him to explain which animals the trapeze artists were; he was distracted by the realization that not only was Natalie not in the trapeze act, but the entire act had been retooled to remove her role.

  Where was she? He found it hard to imagine that she’d leave the circus, she loved it so much. And if she had, why hadn’t she told him?

  Between watching Dali transformed by joy, resisting his raptor’s demands to kiss her, wondering about Natalie, watching for any trouble he might need to protect Dali from, and plotting his approach to dealing with the circus folk after the performance, Merlin had trouble focusing on the rest of the show.

  He kept having to bring his attention back to it as jugglers juggled, clowns tumbled out of a clown car, lions and tigers held a saw in their jaws and sawed a woman in half, a bear danced and rode a unicycle, a parrot answered questions from the audience, and a family of seals (“sea lions, actually,” Merlin whispered) played basketball and volleyball with their noses. And more. Much more. The Fabulous Flying Chameleons believed in giving their audience value for their money.