Flesh Circus

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Next impression: empty seats, their wooden surfaces polished by God knew how many rear ends and backs, their arms carved. Some had straps lying open, others hungry metal hoops that clicked open and shut in time with the music, right where they could close over wrists and ankles. Some of the seats flipped up and down in tentative jerks.

  Three knee-high wooden rings held vast circles of stained sawdust. The two smaller, flanking circles held all sorts of weird metal cages and implements, some crusted with nameless fluids, others gleaming dully. The light came from nowhere, and rippled on the underside of the canvas like reflections from a pond’s unquiet, scum-laced surface.

  The biggest, central ring was mostly bare. Dark spatters and drips spoke in their own tongueless language—that’s high-impact splatter, and right there is arterial spray, and that’s where someone was bludgeoned. I forced myself to look away.

  Set in the exact middle of the middle ring was a plain metal bedstead with a thin dun mattress that looked older than I felt. The hostage lay, curled into a fetal position, his narrow shadowed back to me. He was still wearing the same ratty boxers, and the collar glinted under his lank hair.

  I stepped over the border of the ring, candystriped plywood faded and chipped this close up. As soon as I did, light glared, and I almost threw myself into a fighting crouch before I realized it was a spot from high up, and it highlighted the Ringmaster, standing at the other end of the circle. His face was a cadaver’s leer, and he capered a little like a tired old horse, his red velvet coat glaring and the top hat sending back jets of dispirited aqueous light. His cane whirled once like a propeller, the green crystal globe humming as it clove thick air.

  He danced again, his jodhpurs flapping and the boots landing hard on springy sawdust. Then he halted, jabbed the cane at me, and hissed.

  I set the chickens down. They had gone deathly quiet, and the cage shook slightly. I didn’t blame them a bit. The shadows in here leapt and swirled, but I didn’t see any colorless crystal eyes or lean leaping forms. Even my blue eye was having trouble with the shifting shadows, the ether thick as pea soup.

  But just because I didn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there. And Perry had to be around here somewhere too.

  The calliope quieted slightly, faint cheery music with an undertone of ripping flesh and splintered bone. I did my best to tune it out.

  “Come on in and step right up, ladies and gentlemen! See the hunter come into the ring! Yessir it’s a sight for the ages, and tonight’s show will be the one to end all shows! Hurry, hurry, find your seats—”

  “Shut up.” My yell sliced right through his, and the scar woke to painful, agonized life, sending a hot bolt up my right arm. “And get out of the fucking ring.”

  “This is the seat of our power.” All the bluster was gone. His eyes were sheets of orange fire, fat drops sizzling down his thin cheeks. He even wore stained white gloves, and the calliope agreed with him, singing along. It followed his breathing, a deep hitch whenever he sucked at the air to fuel that voice. “You heard the siren song, didn’t you?”

  Goddamn hellbreed. Tell me again why I’m helping you. “Henri.” I sounded like a teacher addressing a recalcitrant third-grader, but it was just the exhaustion. “If you don’t fucking get out of this ring I’m going to blow your head off.”

  The cane whirled again, once. His lips peeled back, and the faint lines running through the sharp boneridges that served him as teeth were no longer approximations of a human mouth.

  No, they were all shark, and all pointed at me.

  But I stood my ground, next to the chickens in their wire cage, fine white feathers now drifting upward on a random draft of air. Killing him and burning this entire horrorshow to the ground had a certain appeal.

  But that would ruin the plan, Jill.

  A wall of warm air flapped through the entrance, the canvas straining and ropes suddenly creaking. The shadows turned darker, and I knew instinctively that the sun had touched the horizon. Not long now.

  “As you like.” The Ringmaster capered back. “For now.”

  I picked up the cage and matched him step for step, forward as he retreated. By the time I reached the bed in the center, Henri de Zamba was a good twenty feet away toward another pair of flaps, a stage entrance. More spotlights buzzed into life, glaring circles of leprous white stabbing the seats. A shifting crowd murmur filled the tent. I half expected to see people shuffling in, their faces blank with the expectation of entertainment. This light would bleach them out, turn them into ghosts, and the calliope would murmur like it was murmuring now.

  Another rattle of thunder sounded. I could barely hear it over the music.

  I set the cage down. Dug in the black canvas bag. The white novenas in their glass sheaths went at the cardinal points, unlit. I circled around the bed and its deathly-still occupant, leaving a trickle of cornmeal. I made the circle as perfect as I could, etheric force bleeding out from the fingers of my right hand to guide it and keep it solid. The particles were unearthly yellow, like the sunlight even now bleeding away over the edge of the world.

  The circle had to be big enough to contain the bed and another smaller circle traced at the foot. This one I tried not to hurry over, but the shadows in here were getting stronger. How long had I stood listening to the calliope and thinking about the carousel?

  Just do it, Jill. Worry later.

  The veve took shape, the spout of the plastic bottle of meal jittering a little as force ran smoothly through my hand. Alien curves unreeled, and the second smaller circle to one side grew almost without me noticing it. Cornmeal shifted and hissed over the sound of the calliope, and the lines twitched and tweaked until they were satisfied. The meal ran out, but the symbol completed itself out of nowhere.

  A shiver walked down my spine again, salt crust from the cold sweat drying itched. Great.

  The shadows were wine-dark now, well on their way to achieving solidity. Ikaros stirred and the Ringmaster hissed again.

  Move it along, woman! The cigars almost fell out of my shaking hands, rolling in their sheaths. I tipped Florida water out, a sweet orange breath overriding the reek of animals and sawdust. When I looked next, the cigars had arranged themselves near each veve, short bristling hairs atop the circles.

  The Ringmaster hissed again. I set the bottle of Barbancourt rum down, pulled the bag strap over my head, and reached down into its depths, bringing up a plastic bag of copper chloride.

  “I do not recognize this sorcery.” The Ringmaster paced closer to the edge of the containing circle. “I do not trust you.”

  “That makes us about even.” I tipped all the copper chloride I could hold into my left hand. “You’re the first one I’m going to kill if this doesn’t work out. Just remember that.”

  The world held its breath. I pitched the bag and scooped up the rum, just in time. The long dusk exhale ended, and I felt the end of sunset all the way down to my bones.

  I can always feel it. Sunset always wakes me up like five shots of espresso and a bullet whizzing past. I swear I can feel the deep breath Santa Luz takes at the moment of dawn or dusk, when the tide shifts and another day or night rises from the ashes of whatever preceded it.

  The Ringmaster threw back his head and let out an eerie cry, the calliope pausing and thundering out every note it was capable of. The green vapor billowed, and faces appeared in it, long screaming gaunt ghostly faces. Their eyes burned orange, just like the Ringmaster’s—

  —and Ikaros, almost naked on his stained mattress, howled and went into seizure. His thin body bowed up into a hoop, and the collar bloomed with blue sparks as a point of violent green appeared up over the circle. It dilated, became a disc, and there was a pattering sound as roaches fell out of its glare and somehow avoided the circle I’d drawn. They landed in the sawdust and exploded in tiny gobbets of slime. The chickens made high-pitched, frantic sounds suddenly cut off in midsquawk. Their heads had been lopped cleanly off, blood briefly spraying in high-
tension arcs.

  Which was a good sign, if I was looking for one.

  Time’s up.

  The cap on the rum spun off, I took a gulp, and threw the copper chloride over Ikaros. It flashed into sparks of blue flame, the cornmeal spat points of a deeper-blue static, and I sprayed the rum—

  —just as the Ringmaster launched himself over the circle’s barrier and hit me full-on, bones snapping as I flew into the seats and the hostage screamed a curlew cry.

  What the fuck? But I knew. The Ringmaster must’ve thought I was the one fucking with the hostage. Goddamn hellbreed, they don’t even trust themselves.

  Let alone a hunter.

  My hand slapped a gun butt, slipped away, and closed around a knifehilt. We hit, a crunch of thunderous pain, and something warm and wet flung itself out between my lips. One of my large knives stabbed forward, blue flame catching hold on the corruption in the air, and sank into his midsection with a tchuk. That took a little pep out of him, especially when I wrenched the blade back and forth, hellbreed strength pumping through my arm and stink exploding around me. Wooden splinters rammed into my back, skritching against leather.

  I punched him twice in the face, the scar a white-hot coal burrowing into my arm. His hard crust broke, splitting where I’d poisoned him with silver before, and I lunged up out of the wreckage, getting solid footing and pushing with every ounce of strength I could dredge up.

  My fist hit again, the scar squealing in satisfaction as I pulled on etheric energy, and the Ringmaster flew back. His top hat flew the other direction, out of sight. I scrambled up, my side afire with pain and the scar burning as it burrowed in toward the bone. Sick heat spilled through me, bones melding in an instant, and I retched, clear fluid and blood spattering through my mouth and nose before I whooped in a breath and flung myself forward. My abused lungs burned and warm claret trickled down my side, but I had no time to worry about that.

  Because on the other side of the central ring, leaning forward as if pushing into a heavy wind, stood Mama Zamba. Her blond dreadlocks writhed behind her, her hands stretched out into claws, and she pushed against the shell of energy holding the cornmeal circle, her blue eyes gone wide and black above her pitted cheeks.

  I’ve got you now, you bastard. My feet touched down and I vaulted, both guns coming out of the holsters. Her face tipped up and filled with sick green light, cockroaches spattering behind her and flooding forward, seeking a weakness in the circle, and her haunted eyes met mine.

  29

  A tinkling childlike laugh. Sudden cold wetness and smell of salt and candy. And pain so immense it swallowed the world.

  I’d hit something, and it had thrown me. Hard. A convulsion ran through me, muscles locking and nerves firing wildly in protest, a mutiny of the body.

  I rolled onto my side, every inch of me protesting violently. Heaved and would have thrown up if my jaw hadn’t locked. Silver crackled, the charms in my hair rustling, and my eyes were full of heat and something too sticky and red to be tears.

  Thunder, again, not faraway but close and overwhelming. Ozone in the air. The calliope wheezing, limping brokenly through a descant. I pushed myself up and saw the Ringmaster’s broken body trampled into sawdust. Black goop runneled his vanishing flesh. Arms and legs corkscrewed, twisting as death claimed the tissues.

  I slid down the broken remains of several chairs. Gained my feet. Vomited a long string of blood. There were probably internal injuries. Where the hell is Perry? I don’t like it when I can’t see him.

  It was enough that he was staying out of the way. I didn’t want to deal with him and all this at the same time.

  A barrier at ringside was just a three-bar fence, it took me two tries to hop it. And there, beyond the Ringmaster, Mama Zamba lay in the sawdust, writhing. Her dreadlocks were full of grit, and a spume of it jetted up as she convulsed, harsh ratcheting breaths blowing snot out through her nose. Bones crackled, and my smart eye saw the triple-lobed shimmering in the air over her.

  The Twins were occupied with their follower. I gathered myself and bolted for the cornmeal circle. Another rattle of thunder shook the air inside the bigtop, a brief flash of acid white light made every detail stand out. Ikaros wasn’t seizing anymore. He lay sprawled on the bed, chest rising and falling, the angular spiked hell-writing climbing over his flesh in fits and starts. His eyes were open, staring at the roof.

  “Nooooooooooooooo!” Mama Zamba screamed, and her voice deepened, taking on a male timbre at the end. The bone-crackles took on a deeper, wetter sound, and my feet slipped in ichor-slimed sawdust. I was almost there, almost there—

  Another bright-white flash, smell of ozone turned thick and cloying, and a huge warm hand cupped my back and flung me. I landed in a heap inside the cornmeal circle, looked up as I reached my knees.

  Mama Zamba hung in the air, but she no longer looked even faintly female. Her face had shifted, cheekbones broadening and the smallpox scars deepening. Her eyes were now Arthur Gregory’s eyes, glowing feverish gasflame-blue and horribly sane. The caftan flapped around her thickening legs, and he hit the edge of the cornmeal circle going full-speed.

  Ka-POW! Lightning flashed. The resulting explosion knocked me back into the steel-framed bed, its footboard barking me a good one in the side, where my ribs were already tender from being broken once tonight. I collapsed, trying to get enough air in, my hands came up despite me and clutched at the bedframe. I had enough time to see the tendons standing out under my fishbelly-pale skin, blood sliming the back of my left hand and dulling the shine of my apprentice-ring, before the imperative to get fucking moving! boiled through me again and I hauled myself up.

  Noise returned. I realized I’d been temporarily deafened as I landed hard on Ikaros, irrationally afraid the several pounds of ammo I was carrying would crush him. Squirmed, fell to the side, wrapped one hand around a bar in the headboard and braced myself, my right hand jabbing up.

  The collar’s spikes sank into my skin again. The pain was tiny compared to the rest of me. I found the release catch.

  “Noooooooooooo!” Arthur Gregory yelled again, and I snapped a glance up to see him flying toward the cornmeal circle again. I couldn’t count on a lightning strike this time. Chango and the Twins had probably both interfered as much as they were able to.

  The release catch was slimed with blood. I let out a hopeless sound, fingers scrabbling, caught in the spikes coming up from the collar. My apprentice-ring sparked under its mask of blood.

  The catch miraculously parted. The collar opened like a flower, and I rolled off the bed, landing hard on my ass, my head hitting the frame. Silver chimed, a small noise lost in the sudden lunging scream of the calliope. Green vapor filled the air, full of the candy-sick corruption of Hell and a darker effluvia.

  Ikaros screamed. So did Arthur Gregory.

  I scrabbled away on hands and bootheels, muscle pulling loose of bone with hard popping sounds, flaring with pain like nails tearing my flesh. The cornmeal scattered as I plowed through the edge of the circle, and Arthur Gregory landed on the bed. Ikaros was already gone, though, rolling away on the opposite side.

  The scar boiled, burrowing in toward bone. It never got any deeper, but I sometimes wondered what would happen if it did. Right now there wasn’t time. I fumbled for a gun, for a knife to fling, anything. The calliope shrieked again, belching more green smoke, its brass pipes blooming with sick ignus fatus light, spinning off fat globes of bobbing will o’ the wisps.

  The hostage gained his feet in a spooky-quick lunge. He had a lot of pep for someone who had been writhing and twisting with seizures for a day or two. His eyes lit with the dusted glitter of a very pissed-off Trader. His jockey shorts flapped, scrawny-strong muscle popping out under his skin, where the mad angry runnels of hell-script fizzed, glyphs winking out of existence with tiny puffs of steam.

  He drew himself up, and Arthur Gregory hopped off the bed. The caftan fluttered around his ankles, torn and stained all over now. The blond
dreadlocks swayed.

  Sudden silence filled the bigtop. My breathing was very loud, but so was theirs, twin gasps through constricted windpipes.

  They faced each other, and my hand closed around a gun butt. I was moving through syrup.

  Then Ikaros spoke. His face had squinched itself up, and he sounded very young.

  “Arthur?” Tentatively. His broad farmboy paws knotted together. “Art?”

  Arthur Gregory twitched.

  Oh, holy shit. The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. That’s why the attacks didn’t kill him—they were attacks on the Ringmaster, not on the hostage! And—

  “Goddamn you,” Arthur hissed. “God damn you to Hell.”

  Samuel Gregory spread his arms. “Already done. I’ve seen things you can’t imagine.” His face was no longer young. Instead, it was ancient and graven.

  “You were here. The whole time.” Arthur’s hands dropped to his sides. He took two steps forward. The calliope simmered in its corner, a tremor rising up through the floor as if we were having an earthquake. “You were here!”

  “I came here to forget it. Forget it all.” Samuel’s hands twisted together, fingers knotting. “Him. And her. Mother.” The single word was loaded with hatred, and I shivered.

  “Even me?” Arthur drew himself up. His dreadlocks rasped against each other.

  Samuel shrugged. “Even you. I’m… sorry.”

  He didn’t sound sorry.

  “I did everything for you,” Arthur whispered. “Everything. All this. I sold my soul.”

  Samuel sounded unimpressed. “So did I. And you have to come here and remind me.”

  A hand closed over my shoulder. I flinched, but the fingers dug in. “Hush.” Perry’s hot breath touched my bloody cheek. “Be quiet, now. This is meant to be finished.”

  I pitched forward, but I was so tired. And his fingers bit down again, steel pins grinding my flesh. “I said be still.” His whisper floated to my ear, a trickle of moisture that might have been blood or condensation from his breath sliding down toward my jawline. Frantic disgust roiled through me.