by Kat Cotton
The only ones moving were Duke and his bigwig guests. The four of them walked toward me.
I punched the demon again, not wanting him at full strength when they got near us. If I could, I’d spew out the words I needed to kill the beast but those words didn’t come and I had no idea why.
Was this what Buzz meant? Were my powers weakening already?
Before I could punch him again, Duke grabbed me and pulled me off him. I lashed out, arms blazing. Couldn’t Duke see what I had to do here? The demon planned on attacking us during the show.
“Settle down, Jayne,” he said. He pulled me close to him, pinning my arms behind me.
“Why are you attacking our lighting guy?” one of the bigwigs asked. “What’s up with this woman? Is she emotionally unstable?”
“Lighting guy? Lighting guy? He’s no lighting guy. He’s a —”
Duke pulled my arms tighter, a clear sign to shut up. I inhaled. He was right. Blurting out things about demons wouldn’t help here.
“Jayne, you need to get ready for your act.” His words were almost hissed out. Then he turned to the bigwigs. “I’m so sorry about this. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her. She’s normally very demure. Of course, we’ll do what we can to compensate for this incident.”
I wanted to protest but the supposed lighting dude got up and dusted himself off. I looked into his eyes. Even though they seemed dull, they did look human.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Duke whispered to me as we walked back. “You could ruin everything.”
“He was going to attack,” I said, keeping my head down.
The thought that I might’ve screwed up crept over me. Every other time I’d confronted a demon, I’d had these feelings deep in my belly and in my head. A sense that something was wrong. But with this guy, I’d attacked him based on pure human logic. None of those other things were going on.
“He matched the description,” I muttered. “Beady eyes, hooked nose.”
“A lot of people match that description,” Duke said. “You can’t beat up all of them.”
I gave a curt nod then bit the inside of my lip. I really had fucked up.
Duke grabbed my arm. “You need to be up there and ready to hoop in two minutes,” Duke said. “No delays, no gaps. This show has to be as good as any we do for a full crowd. I thought I’d hammered that into you.”
I nodded but didn’t answer.
“Now I’m going to have to go back to those guys and kiss ass big time.”
I side eyed Duke. We both knew he wouldn’t be kissing ass. He could handle them a lot easier than that. A friendly touch on the arm with a suggestion that the show was brilliant worked so much better. Hell, we didn’t even need to do this run through for them. Duke could’ve done that from the start.
Before I could get to the side of stage, one of the bigwigs approached us.
“I think she needs to make an apology,” he said. “Brandon’s talking about pressing charges. He might have a broken nose and needs medical help.”
Demons don’t get broken noses. I didn’t know much about demons but I’m pretty sure they didn’t.
Duke sighed then plastered a brilliant smile on his face.
“No need to worry about that. One of my troupe has medical training. We’ll see to it after the performance. In the meantime, I hope you can settle back and enjoy the rest of the show. Jayne’s about to go on but she’ll make all the necessary reparations later.”
It seemed like an easy fix. Nuno fixing up the guy’s injuries, Duke rearranging their minds. A little too easy. It almost seemed like they’d done this kind of thing many times before.
Meanwhile, with that adrenalin rush messing with my energy, my performance would be lackluster at best. I’d only be going through the motions.
I turned back to check how Duke fared with the bigwig and got a glimpse of his face. That guy. The festival director. I’d seen him before. Not here though. Not in connection with this carnival.
It was just before I went on that it hit me. I did know that guy. At the gym, in boxing class, the guy who’d completely wussed out because I hit him too hard. Shit.
That same guy was the festival director? That had to be some weird coincidence, right? It couldn’t mean anything more.
Chapter 25
I GOT THROUGH MY PART of the show okay and headed to the change room to get ready for the finale. Getting changed in the empty room was much easier until I remembered this was the part of the show where Gretchen had been murdered. I glanced at the door. Had she stood here like this, stripping off her leotard in preparation? Thinking of nothing but the act to come?
The door would’ve been firmly shut like it was now but someone had entered. That wouldn’t be difficult. Even if it was shut, it wasn’t locked.
When the demon entered, had he been in human form? He must’ve been. Maybe he was able to change forms. I needed to research that.
She’d seen someone she’d recognized then he’d revealed his true form.
There’d been no sign of struggle according to the reports. He must’ve struck so quickly after revealing himself. Maybe he’d crept up behind her. Or maybe he’d been one of the crew, like the lighting guy. She’d assumed he’d come in to give her a message or something. Everyone involved in the production had been investigated. A few had been suspects but they’d had alibis or had come out clean. But then if Big Curly had escaped detection on the crew maybe there’d been others.
In all the cases I’d worked on, I’d never put myself in the victim’s shoes before. I’d gone at them like puzzles that needed to be solved, ignoring the human side of the crimes. Now I was only too literally in the victim’s shoes. Somehow that made getting the hell out of this empty change room and back on that stage a heap more appealing.
I smiled at the irony. Feeling safer having knives thrown at me. That was a good one.
I flinched as a loud bang echoed through the room. What was that? Something coming? I grabbed for the nearest weapon, ready to attack. No one could blame me for defending myself.
The banging sounded again.
I crept out to check, staying on tiptoes so whatever it was couldn’t hear me and keeping my weapon at the ready.
Then I found it. A loose bit of board flapping around in the wind. The tent wasn’t nearly as strongly constructed at the back as it was in parts the audience could see.
I sat down my weapon. A hair brush? Huh? Thankfully no one had seen that. What had I intended to do anyway? Brush the demon to death? Offer to braid its hair?
My costume for the Wheel of Death was a slinky dress, more like something Lilly would wear. For this act, I kinda wished that I’d taken her offer of padding me. At least that would be a level of protection. I hadn’t rehearsed this other than at my audition because Duke said it wasn’t necessary. I just had to be strapped in. It wasn’t like I was an active participant.
A sheen of sweat covered my skin. I grabbed a towel and wiped myself down. I had to get my shit together instead of being so skittish.
As I walked out onto the stage, Duke glared at me. I raised my eyebrows and he glared even harder. He was pissed about me attacking the lighting guy. I got that. But really, he could try to be a bit more reassuring. No one wants an angry person throwing knives at them.
The stage had become darker now with a big spotlight shining on the wheel and a smaller light on Duke. I gulped. Even without the knife thing, I didn’t like the idea of this act. Being strapped to that wheel made me vulnerable as hell and then I came off it so dizzy that I was rendered ineffectual.
Even if that lighting guy hadn’t been the demon, him and the festival director were up to no good. I didn’t want to be vulnerable around either of them.
While Nuno strapped me to the board, Duke entranced the crowd as it were, holding up his knives to get that sparkle of light reflecting off them, then chopping through things to prove their sharpness. Nuno pulled the leather firmly around my wrist, fasten
ing the buckle. He looked at me to ask if that was okay. I was getting better at interpreting his meanings and I nodded so he moved to the second one.
Duke’s voice rumbled through the empty room. Those three men still sat in the crowd. Why had that guy been at my gym? The more I thought about it, the less it seemed like a fluke.
I shook my head as Nuno tightened the strap on my left ankle.
“A little tighter,” I said.
Thinking back now, that guy had been trying to provoke me. If someone wrote a manual on ‘how to provoke Jayne Hudson’ then he’d have followed it step by step. I’d been stupid to fall for it. So stupid. The question was why. It seemed an awful lot of trouble to go to when I had no real link to the troupe at the time.
He’d been strange, acting like an asshole in that class. And then, at the end of the class, he’d stolen the gloves. The ones with my blood on them.
I wasn’t completely sure that the rat-faced lighting guy was so innocent either. He matched Big Curly’s description. He worked with the dodgy festival guy. I needed to get his name and have the guys check into him. Was he working the night Gretchen had been killed? And in the other towns with the murders?
Nuno gave the wheel a spin and I closed my eyes. Less than five minutes and this would be done. The motion made all my thoughts drop from my head apart from that one. Five minutes. Three hundred seconds. That’s all.
My fists clenched and my jaw tightened. I counted the thud of each knife hitting the board around me.
Shit, one of those knives went awfully close to my skin. It’d almost grazed me. Duke had told me not to worry about things like that but it wasn’t him strapped to this board with knives flying at him. I wanted to open my eyes and look but I knew if I did, the blurriness of the room as I spun around would make me nauseous.
How many minutes had it been? Surely the five minutes were up. Was the wheel slowing? I thought so but it was hard to tell.
Finally, I heard applause, weak and in the distance. We were done.
Nuno unstrapped me and helped me off the stage. My legs had turned to jelly and my head spun. He sat me down to recover offstage before I went back to the dressing room. I still had my head buried in my hands when Duke approached.
“We need to talk,” he said.
I looked up at him but my stomach lurched and I lowered my head again.
“The guy matched the description,” I said.
That sounded so lame. A kid’s excuse. I’d been so sure of myself at the time but running off half-cocked like that didn’t just make the troupe look bad, it could jeopardize the whole investigation. I sure didn’t want to get the wrong kind of attention and have people asking questions about me. I had no intention of telling Duke about creepy director guy being at my gym since that might get him asking questions I didn’t want to answer.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Duke said. “Luckily, I’ve smoothed things over but I can’t always do that.”
I sucked as much air into my lungs as I could then looked up again. I’d say what I had to say without vomiting.
“What is that that you do, anyway? It’s freaky and unnatural. Is it some kind of mind control? Do you do it onstage too?”
He sucked in his cheeks and turned away. Discussion over, on his part, but I grabbed his arm before he could walk off.
“You have to tell me. I’m part of this troupe, aren’t I?”
“Tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine,” he said. “I’m not sure what you are and you don’t seem ready to discuss it.”
I dropped his arm.
When the van pulled up at the warehouse, I left quickly. Once I was in a safe space, I called Larry and gave him the information on the director.
“Most likely a coincidence but we’ll check it out. Did anyone outside the team know about your audition with the troupe at that stage.”
“Nope. Not a word. I wasn’t even going to take the case, remember.”
Larry sighed. “I thought as much. And you’re not really one for talking shop with the guys at the best of times. So, I knew, you know and a couple of the higher ups knew.” He made a whistling noise. “This could mean a serious breach in security.”
“It might, or it might mean he’d hung around the audition, looking for more victims.”
“Hopefully that’s it.”
After I hung up, I headed to Buzz’s to train with him. I’d have to tell him what happened today and he’d be disappointed.
I wasn’t wrong about that either. Buzz gave me that look, the one that said I’d done something stupid. He didn’t even need to use words.
“My powers don’t work unless it’s an actual demon?” I asked. “I get that feeling, all wavery and weird. I need to tune in on that.”
He nodded. “Looks that way. Which is a good thing because you can’t attack innocent humans.”
“I’m not sure if that guy was so innocent but there’s something I’m worried about.”
“Other than the risk of death and injury?”
“If the demon does attack during a performance, I can’t use my power to destroy him. Not in front of a full audience. That’d be a disaster. I need some way to attack or weaken the demon that doesn’t involve me revealing myself.”
I wasn’t sure the demon would attack while I was onstage but that was a possibility I’d have to take into account. I couldn’t let myself be caught out. And, unlike Gretchen, I knew too much to trust anyone offstage.
“I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Buzz said. “There’s someone you need to see.”
Chapter 26
I FOUND THE ADDRESS Buzz had given me. It wasn’t in the most upmarket area of the city, it wasn’t even in the better part of a down market neighborhood, but in a dingy alley off a street filled with discount stores and sex shops and greasy food places.
I wove my way through the dumpsters and junkies until I found her door. This was the place. I rang the doorbell and waited while trash blew down the alleyway and one of the junkies murmured incoherently.
Finally, she answered. An older woman with a shawl over her head, obscuring her face. The long cardigan she wore had been stretched out with wear, the front much longer than the back and was covered with nobbles like she’d slept in it for years.
“Come in, come in,” she said, her voice raspy.
She shuffled off and I followed her down the dark hallway.
“Shut the door,” she barked. “Don’t let the trash in.”
I wasn’t sure if she meant the actual trash or the junkies but I closed the door behind me.
She led me to a room at the back. A few lamps lit the room, filling it with strange shadows. It had all the trappings, the things women like her used to give the illusion of mystic gifts. From the stuffed owls sitting on the shelf looking like they’d swoop down to peck your eyes out to the crystal ball and the tarot card decks littering the table in the middle of the room. The heavy lacy curtains hanging at the windows suggested decades of dust. That was confirmed by the knick knacks sitting around the room.
Woo-woo music played from somewhere. Smells of herbs and oils wafted through the air - sage and rosemary and something way too cloying. The kinds of things you use to make love potions for stupid people who believe in such things. For a few cents in ingredients, you could whip up a potion that sold for dollars.
She swept some things off the table and told me to sit down. I sat on the rickety chair and folded my arms. Was this woman going to read my palm? Offer to sell me some cheap trinkets to improve my luck?
I wasn’t sure why Buzz had wanted me to come here. Surely he wasn’t sucked in by her obvious scams.
After sitting on the seat opposite me, she studied my face. I wouldn’t speak first. She wanted to read me, to pick up clues so she could hurl them out as psychic fact. I knew all the tricks and I wasn’t here to play those kinds of games. If there was one thing I hated in life it was charlatan fortune tellers. I’d had enough of those to last me a lifetime.
“I’ve heard about you,” she said.
“From Buzz?”
The woman screwed up her face. “Buzz? Who is Buzz? That is not where I get my information. You are the one who fights the demons, yes?”
I didn’t like this woman knowing too much about me. She reminded me of people I wanted to forget. And she was full of shit. She obviously did know who Buzz was since he’d been the one to send me here. But she had to talk in riddles. That was their way.
I nodded. I had to give her some information in order for her to help but I wasn’t going to feed it to her. She could’ve known that from the way Buzz had approached her. It wasn’t hard information to decipher.
“You are right to come to me. This demon is very powerful. You are powerful too but you put limitations on yourself. That means you can’t defeat him. He wants you. He wants you dead. That’s what the spirits tell me.”
That’s what Big Curly had told me, too. That the demon was after me. I had no idea why.
“Well if I can’t defeat him, I’m pretty well screwed. He wants my blood so that’s not going to be a life enhancing experience.”
“I can help you.”
She adjusted the shawl, still making sure her face stayed obscured. I’d learned never to trust someone who doesn’t show their face but I’d work with her for now.
“So, tell me, why does he want me specifically? I’m no big deal.”
That was the question I wanted answered. Something kept drawing those demons to me, well either to me or the troupe. I wasn’t sure which.
The woman waved her claw-like hand in a sweeping motion. Clunky silver rings glittered as they caught the light. I wasn’t sure what that waving motion meant.
“But you are a big deal,” she said. “You. You are gifted and you have the blood he seeks. He already has two. With you, it becomes three.”
Again, the riddles. He had two? Two what? Two victims?
“Wait, you mean he’s killed two girls already?”
She nodded. There was another besides Gretchen? That was something I’d have to tell Larry. He needed to run through the records and see if there was a case with a similar M.O.
