Funhouse

by Aurelia T. Evans

  “I remember you,” Maya said brightly, although she wasn’t smiling. “You’re from the Ferris wheel, right? I never forget a redhead.”

  Neve wanted to smear that makeup and tousle that hair for an entirely different reason than Joseph. “Do you forget the husbands you cheat with?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I saw you.” Neve didn’t yell, but heat rose in her cheeks and ears, because everyone else could hear, no matter how softly she spoke. They were all silent, watching and listening with the avidity of a soap opera audience. “I saw you with him.”

  “With who? That guy you were with?” The only thing that saved Maya from a full-on chick fight—which Neve was not beneath doing—was that she looked genuinely nonplussed. She stepped away from Bell, slipping her hand from his. “You didn’t sit together in the Ferris wheel, and you didn’t get defensive when I flirted with him. He didn’t get defensive when I flirted with you. I assumed you were friends or related. And I checked for wedding rings. I always check.”

  “He might have taken his wedding ring off after we split up, but we were wearing wedding rings on the Ferris wheel.” Neve held up her left hand. She couldn’t be too judgmental about Maya having sex with her husband, given the glass house she’d built, but a thick, platinum wedding band was hard to miss.

  “No.” Maya shook her head. To Neve’s surprise, tears actually started swimming in her eyes. “No, that’s when I checked. That’s when Bell gave his permission for me to…”

  Both Maya and Neve looked from each other to Bell, who raised his eyebrows slightly. Not subtle alarm, but intrigue. Curiosity, and all the more insulting for it.

  “You told me to go out and have fun,” Maya said. “When I indicated who I’d like to have fun with, you encouraged me. I didn’t see a wedding ring on the Ferris wheel or when we went behind the booth. You wanted me to fuck him, because you wanted her to see it.”

  “And you wanted me to see it after you changed me so I wouldn’t say no to the incubus at my window,” Neve finished for her. “You orchestrated all of this. You had to have known what I was going to wish for before Joseph and I reached the Ferris wheel, which was before I even knew I wanted to go to the fortune teller’s tent. How far back did you know?”

  He clasped his hands behind his back like a patron before a piece of art rather than a contrite school boy, but the intrigue in his expression faltered. “As soon as you entered Arcanium, I told Maya to leave the tent and have her fun. She’s my magician’s assistant and apprentice. That’s why I keep a chair for her in the corner.”

  Neve felt sick, and it wasn’t solely from her proximity to the incubus. “But she’s not just your apprentice or assistant. You called her yours. And not for a little bit of fun on the side, or else she wouldn’t have needed your permission.”

  “I asked her if I could kiss you, as well,” Bell said. “We both stray, as long as it is with foreknowledge.”

  “Foreknowledge… Such as two people, in what was apparently an unhappier marriage than I thought, entering your circus, and you finding a way to tear them apart by lying to your own lover? Not to mention lying to the person you sent to fetch me, making him think he was going to kill me. I might never let him touch me again, because now I know he was willing to.”

  “He is what he is. There’s no need to punish him for that,” Bell said.

  “So you reward him instead?”

  Bell arched his eyebrows higher at the snake charmer’s interjection, amusement a cold, gleeful glint off the amber in his eyes. Add the Spider’s abrupt exit into the mix, and he’d apparently pissed off at least four women with one plot. It would have been impressive if Neve wasn’t so damn furious.

  “True, you starve him more than you starve me,” the snake charmer said. “Most of your trespassers are straight men. What doesn’t go to the clowns most often goes to me. But I’ve never developed an obsession with two of your women, never nearly killed another one of your men because they happened to be fucking my obsession. The Ringmaster has never had to discipline me. I’ve danced for you, performed for you, kept Mikhail satisfied when it was too much to take. I suffered Bale’s worship without ever being able to touch him until you fulfilled his wish to sacrifice himself to me. I’ve done everything for you, followed every rule. And you give this gift to him?”

  The python snapped at Bell. Neve jerked out of staring at a mesmerizing succubus gathering power around her like gold coins in a vault, power that crackled with the same electricity Neve remembered in her bedroom, when it had steamed from the strongman’s body.

  The snake charmer stalked away, following the Spider out of the tent.

  Despite all the power Neve had sensed around the succubus—power inextricable from desire that had nearly shaken her legs out from under her—she had a bad feeling that the fact the snake charmer had left instead of confronting Bell more physically spoke to Bell’s greater power rather than the charmer’s self-control.

  Kitty had already moved out of the succubus’ way, joining the conjoined twins, but disapproval had brought a frown to her pretty, furry face. The twins were both side-eyeing Mikhail, fear in the set of their shoulders, the knitting of their foreheads. Two men came up from behind them with their own comfort, holding the girls’ hands, holding each other’s hands.

  The gathered power left behind by the charmer dissipated, although not enough for the flush to leave anyone’s faces. Maya adjusted her corset, shifting her thighs against each other in exactly the way Neve wanted to do. It was oddly comforting, knowing she wasn’t the only one.

  “You could have just taken her,” Maya said quietly. “After she made the wish, you could have whisked her away like you’ve done before. But no, you had to make sure everything crumbled in your wake. You had to entertain yourself by manipulating everyone around you. Which isn’t news anymore, but then you made me a party to the misery. You actively misled me into having sex with a married man for his wife to witness.”

  Either Bell didn’t see it coming or he let it happen. Maya was a short woman, but she had powerful arms. She landed a solid punch right in the hollow under Bell’s prominent cheekbone.

  A few of the people in the tent laughed, some of them uproariously, but Neve wasn’t one of them. She brought her hand to her cheek in involuntary sympathy as Bell reeled to the side. And she waited for Bell to retaliate. All that talk about protecting his people and punishment that could include death by sex demon… She couldn’t imagine how bad it would be for someone who struck him.

  When Bell straightened, he touched the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t hit her back, didn’t rain down hellfire and brimstone or call for a public flogging. However, the amusement and curiosity had been stricken from his face.

  “Over and over, you bring people into Arcanium in personal, painful ways, and I’m your favorite spectator. You do it for yourself, but you love an audience.” Maya’s eyes were red, and tears streamed down through the makeup now, but it was of such good quality that it barely smeared. “We keep telling you there’s a better way, but you never take it. You do whatever will be the most interesting. and we know you will, so I don’t know why we still try to get you to change. That’s on us. But you made me part of it this time. And you did it exactly the way you shouldn’t have. You should have known better!”

  She shoved him, voice catching on the ‘better’. Bell stumbled back, still doing nothing to stop her.

  Maya swallowed against whatever had thickened in her throat, gathering herself up as well as someone so extravagantly and sexily costumed could. “You’re a fucking psychic. You do know better. That’s why you hid their wedding rings from me. That’s why you didn’t tell me about my part in the plan. It was stupid of me to think you cared—or that you ever could. Well, you still get a little of what you want. I like Arcanium too much to leave now. But we’re done, Bell. We’re done.”

  “Maya.” Bell reached for her, but Maya backed away and took the same pat
h as the Human Spider and the snake charmer to the back exit.

  “Wow, Bell. Do you think you could piss off any more of us with this one brilliant move of yours?” Kitty said, still protective of the conjoined twins.

  Mikhail had moved away from them, though, away from the bed, toward the part of the tent with the Tall Man, Short Man and the gargoyle on the crates. In the shadows, his eye sockets were dark again in a way shadow alone could not account for, but the set of his neck and shoulders suggested he’d been chastened rather than Bell.

  “I’m sorry you had to meet us like this, Neve,” Kitty added. “I suppose it’s better than abject terror, which some of our new members experience. Still, we’re rarely this fractured all at once.”

  Bell ran the back of his hand over his mouth, wiping the blood smear away, but the motion didn’t hide how his fingers trembled. “She’s still here. She didn’t leave.”

  “Yet I imagine you’re going to have to conjure up another trailer to sleep in, unless you want to sleep in the big top bed you’ve created.” As soon as Kitty made sure the conjoined twins were okay, led away by the two acrobats, she adjusted her skirts. The jingle bells sounded cold in the emptier tent. “You’ll notice I have no sympathy.”

  “You have no room to talk, Kitty, given with whom you bed yourself.”

  “He never pretends he’s not evil. We’re absolutely on the same page. Everything he does that’s not evil is the pleasant surprise I wake up next to. But if you insist on describing yourself as neutral and not actively malicious, maybe don’t trigger your girlfriend in the process of traumatizing another recruit. And maybe don’t take the people you use for granted, because Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail don’t have to stay. They can wish themselves out anytime they want, and they’ve been with you long enough and served you so faithfully that you would let them out, unless you wanted a full-on mutiny among your demons. The Ringmaster can leave. I could leave.”

  “You’re not ready to leave either,” Bell said. “This is your home, Kitty.”

  “No, I’m not ready. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” Kitty crossed her arms. “But Maya does. You already set her free. Why would you ruin that by taking advantage of her?”

  “I take advantage of everyone. How often has she taken advantage of me in return, for which I was perfectly willing to give her advantage?”

  Kitty glared. “You’re a fool. And until you realize that, I’d get myself that solo trailer if I were you. Do you want me to go over the rules with Neve, or did you want to botch that up, too?”

  “I’ll botch that up, too, thank you. Go follow her. Maya will need you to speak to.” Bell put his hand on Neve’s shoulder, and although the touch brought the aching and restlessness back to her muscles, Neve didn’t jerk away. Angry men with power were unpredictable. He hadn’t struck back at Maya, and he’d let the charmer and the bearded lady talk back, but they’d been there for years, and Neve knew a little something about seniority.

  “Let’s just say I notice a pattern among your favorites,” Kitty said. “If you’re going to do that to your women, Bell, maybe you should stick to casual. Once again, Neve, I’m sorry you had to see us like this. We’re normally much more welcoming after the initial trauma. Should I send a golem back with food?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Bell replied shortly. “Thank you, Kitty.”

  She went out the back exit with the rest. While everyone had been distracted, a few others had left as well, either to do whatever circus folk did after a circus closed or to avoid any collateral damage.

  Bell coughed, brushed his cheek again. The swelling and discoloration faded as though it had never been there.

  “You fucked up, man,” the pale man said gleefully.

  “Yes, I appreciate you vocalizing what I’ve already heard in everyone’s minds,” Bell snapped. “Go drown yourself in your mermaid’s tank, Lennon, and leave me be.”

  “Welcome party’s over, boys. And I thought it was going to get real interesting after Mikhail touched her.” Lennon leapfrogged over the back of the chair, pushing it over, but he caught it with his heel before it could hit the ground. Another acrobat, then.

  “Don’t you even think it, Moss.” This time Bell directed his venom to the Short Man. “You were never anything but a diversion.”

  Moss rode the Tall Man’s shoulder on the way out, unshaken. “And she’ll need plenty of diversions if Mikhail and Sasha keep getting their dander up. It can’t hurt my feelings if I don’t want anything more. You’d do well to learn that.”

  Neve shifted out from under Bell’s hand now, because there was no one to witness her doing it except Mikhail, who was still in the shadows. “So this isn’t common?”

  Bell deflated, the strong lines of him somehow weakened, but he shook his head, blinked hard—although not against tears, against something else he kept inside. “No. Nothing about this is common. They’ll understand eventually. They’ll understand why I needed you, why I needed you the way I collected you. Mikhail, please leave. If she wants you, she’ll follow the scent you trail behind you even with your tail between your legs, but right now, I can’t stand the sight of any of you.”

  “Do you know what you’ve done? You can’t have me bind myself to a human then deny her to me,” Mikhail said.

  “Watch me. The same rules inside Arcanium apply. She isn’t yours just because you’re bound, any more than the Creature can own the Spider because he bonded with her.”

  “You fucking bastard.” Mikhail grabbed the chair that Lennon had straddled and threw it against the crates, shattering the wood into kindling. “I’m not angry at her. She didn’t know what she was doing. But you did.” Mikhail pointed at him, an accusation he clearly wanted to make more physical. “You know I won’t leave as long as she’s here, as long as I’ve got a taste for her and can have her more than once. You hooked me on her so I wouldn’t leave. And you’re keeping me so Sasha doesn’t leave, because no matter how angry she is, she wouldn’t leave me behind. You’ve got everything figured out, you conniving son of a slaughtered pig.”

  After Mikhail stalked out, Bell and Neve were the only ones left in the tent other than the big cats in their cages—except they weren’t big cats anymore. Sometime during the arguments, they’d become human and wrapped blankets around their nakedness. Well, that was one way to safely keep big cats in a small traveling circus. It probably also saved them some grief from animal rights activists—especially if the animal rights activists were the ones who ended up in the big cat cages.

  Bell rubbed his face, sighing. “Well, that could have gone better.”

  “If you hadn’t used magic to protect me, Mikhail would have just killed me, wouldn’t he? And you wouldn’t have lost a second of sleep.” The same privacy that made him feel comfortable enough to show his weariness meant she didn’t have to protect his ego anymore.

  “It wasn’t magic that saved you but the wish and the qualities the wish imparted. But if I hadn’t granted your wish, my incubus and succubus would have considered you such pleasant company. Do you know how rare it is for them to spend their time with a person they aren’t interested in because that person is completely unable to be stimulated into desiring them? You would have been one of the safest people in the world for them to be with. Pleasant for me to be around as well. Sex occupies much of many minds. It’s uniquely peaceful to spend time near a mind that isn’t occupied by such a drive. Granting your wish changed everything, made you uniquely irresistible to Mikhail, but I ensured the same transformation would protect you.”

  “What exactly did you do to me? Because this isn’t normal. Right? This isn’t normal.” She stroked her upper arms as though cold. Really, she just needed the friction.

  “No. It’s not normal. But you already know about me and normal. Besides, you didn’t just wish you could enjoy sex. You wished to enjoy sex the way a man wants a gorgeous woman to enjoy sex. You’ll find that’s far from normal. But you’ll learn ways to live with it.
All of my oddities learn.”

  “It hurts.” Neve used her nails next. She didn’t want to scratch through the skin, but it was hard to restrain herself.

  He led her from the tent with his hand a few inches from her back, not touching her. The warmth from his palm drove her forward, especially once they stepped outside, where her skin pebbled, tightened like canvas pulled over a frame. “It hurts because Lord Mikhail made contact. Distance and time are the only things to slowly heal that ache, unless you exorcise your need with another man—or with Lord Mikhail himself.”

  “I’m not going to him.” Even as she said it, her abdomen spasmed in protest, almost like one of her really bad cramps. “And I’m not going with you, so don’t think you’ve got someone else to warm your bed with your lover out of it.”

  “I force granted wishes on the people of Arcanium. That’s all I force upon them. I’m quite insistent on that point.”

  He walked her around the other side of the big top tent, away from the carousel and the animal enclosure, away from the funhouse, the midway and Oddity Row. They headed for the caravan, a piecemeal collection of RVs, trucks, trailers and semis that clustered together at the edge of the circus.

  “Don’t be alarmed by how out in the open, haphazard or unsafe everything looks. The nature of Arcanium means that my people, even some of my demons, can be vulnerable to outsiders, so the incubus, succubus and clowns are my first line of defense against trespassers.”

  “What’s the second line?”

  “Me.”

  “But if your power is in the wishing, how do you defend Arcanium? You can’t force someone to make a wish.” But she realized as soon as she said it that she was wrong. There was plenty a man like Bell could do with predatory demons on his side. Fates worse than death weren’t hard to come by with people who smiled like the clowns.

  Bell smiled, too, as she answered her own question. So he was psychic. That wasn’t just a trick. She wondered if he could really see the future as well.