The Immortal Circus: Final Act (Cirque des Immortels)

by Kahler, A. R.

  “Oh.” She pauses. “What cheery news did our little poltergeist impart?”

  “I don't know. A lot of the same. Oberon is marching, that sort of thing. But she said something about the end coming in three.” I glance at her. “What do you think she means?”

  Mel shrugs. “Who knows with her? She might just be talking out of her ass. Not literally, of course, though I wouldn't put it past her.”

  I don't laugh, and I don't say anything. Her momentary attempt at humor vanishes.

  “I don't know,” she continues. “But it's never good, is it? Mab's readying for war, Oberon's readying for war, and we're the prize waiting in the middle. Granted, in this case, the prize also has a demon waiting to break free and tear both teams apart.” She sighs and flops back on her bed. “Nothing like waiting to die, eh?”

  “That's the thing. I'm not going to just sit around and wait for one of them to claim us.”

  “We're already claimed, love. This is still Mab's show.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She nods.

  “When we were leaving Summer,” I say slowly, “you mentioned that you were readying the troupe for war. Do you think…do you think they'd still fight? If the Courts attacked, would they fight back?”

  “Maybe,” she considers. “They're pretty pissed—I don't think they'd rally under any flag but their own, to be honest. But I also don't think they'd just bend over and take it.” She glances at me. “Are you thinking of raising an army?”

  The vision burns in the back of my mind: the tent in flames, the whole troupe rent apart and burning in the fields.

  “If they'll fight,” I say.

  “One problem: We're sworn to Mab, remember? Even if the troupe did rally under your flag, it's a contractual impossibility to rebel against her. No matter what, we're still her bitch.”

  “Contracts can change,” I offer.

  “Not without the book.”

  I growl and lie back on the bed.

  “I just feel like we should be doing something, you know? I'm tired of waiting around for someone to try and kill us.”

  She chuckles. “Look on the bright side: if Lilith's telling the truth, we don't have too long to wait.”

  “You're horrible,” I say.

  “And that's why you love me.”

  * * *

  My pulse was still racing when Mel parked the car in the lot outside the new pitch. She let it idle and looked over at me, her expression concerned.

  “Are you going to tell me what's going on?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth. But, like the entire ride back, I had no idea how to voice what had just happened. She had just rescued me from a cell in the Summer Court, had dragged my sorry ass halfway across Faerie and back into the mortal world. She'd taken me to my family home, to the nightmares that waited in the corners of my memory. And she had waited in the car while I went inside my apartment to learn more about my past. She had missed everything.

  She'd missed me stumbling into the kitchen and finding the spot where—months earlier—I had not only murdered my father, but killed my own sister in cold blood. The first kill had been self-defense; the second had been to save Claire from the apocalypse Kassia had been promising. Melody had missed my reunion with my mother, who turned out not to be my mother at all, but a magical construct created by Mab to fuck with me just a little bit more.

  And she had missed my confrontation with Mab herself; Mab, in a rage, when she told me that every carefully laid plan I'd made had been in vain. I had escaped Summer under the pretense of ending her rule, of leading a rebellion that would kick her from her own show. But she had known. She had known all of it. And she had turned it all against me.

  “I'm the ringmaster,” I told Mel. It was the first thing I'd been able to voice since I had stepped into the waiting car, my only words beyond my initial “We need to go back.”

  Melody looked at me like I was speaking nonsense. Maybe I was. It still felt too surreal, too sudden. Mab gave me the show so I couldn't fight back. She made her welfare and the welfare of her entire Court my responsibility.

  “What do you mean?” Mel asked.

  “Mab gave me the show,” I said. “She said that this is what I got for trying to defy her. She's going back home to prepare for the war.”

  “That's ridiculous,” she said. “You don't know the first thing about running a show.”

  I nodded. “I don't think she wants me to succeed. She said if the show fails, I die.”

  “That doesn't make any sense,” Mel said. “She needs you alive. She needs you to control Lilith—it's the only way she'll win against Oberon.”

  “And she knows this is the only way I'll fight for her side,” I said. “Because now you're my responsibility. Everyone's my responsibility. If I fail, you all die. She knows I won't let that happen, not after losing Kingston. She's won.”

  There was a fire in Mel's eyes. Melody, who had been rousing the troupe against Mab behind her back, Mel, who had tried to keep her shape-shifting powers secret just so she'd have an ace up her sleeve.

  “She hasn't won yet,” she said. “We can still fight back. We still have an army.”

  “No. We have a company that wants out of their contracts. And now, I'm in charge of them.”

  Mel didn't say anything for a while after that. Like me, she was trying to let the information settle in. Like me, she didn't want to believe any of it was true. In the last twenty-four hours, I'd not only learned my boyfriend had betrayed me, but I had watched him get his throat slit. I'd learned my entire family was dead by my doing. And now, I had a show to run.

  “I have to be on in an hour,” I said, my voice dull, my heart numb. “Otherwise I die. And so will you.”

  Mel opened her mouth like she wanted to protest. Then she saw the look on my face and changed her mind.

  “What do you need me to do?” she asked instead.

  I tried to steel my voice, tried to find some humor in the situation. I failed on both counts.

  “Help me into Mab's corset.”

  * * *

  An hour before the last show of the night, I’m in front of Mab's trailer. She has the entire double-wide to herself, though now that she's not here it seems ridiculous to cart it around all the time. There are two doors on the side, and I stand before the one that used to lead to her office. I rest my hand on the latch, and I close my eyes, not certain if I'm praying or begging. Please just be there.

  I open the door.

  A broom closet stares back at me.

  My heart sinks and I slam the door shut, making the entire trailer rock. It's not like I expected her to be there, but I dunno, maybe she had sensed that something was wrong, that Lilith was acting up again. Maybe she would have wanted to check in—it was the day of Tapis Noir after all, and she hadn't been here for nearly a month.

  But no, no magical entry to the Winter Court, no office plucking itself out of the darkness. No skull and crystal sconces, no desk, no shelf of esoteric books. No Mab.

  I head over to the other door and yank it open. The overpowering scent of mothballs and dusty fabric billows out.

  This second door appeared the same day I inherited the show. Inside is a drag queen's paradise. If said drag queen is also into bondage.

  Corsets and leotards and thigh-high boots line each wall, while the clothes rack in the middle is taken up by feather boas and fishnets and spiked ringmaster coats. Every color, every style, from Tank Girl punk to glamorous diva. Even though there are more clothes in here than I'd ever expected to own, I know it is only a small selection of Mab's collection. These are her hand-me-downs. And somehow, magically, they are all in my size.

  Ironic, seeing as she's easily a head shorter than me and has tits the size of cantaloupes.

  I step inside and rummage through the racks. I settle on a glittery coat made up of emerald mirror shards, high-heeled boots that lace up to my thighs, and a black leather leotard with gold swirls over one shoulder. M
aybe, years ago, I would have taken the time to admire myself, the transformation from ordinary Midwestern girl into limelight starlet. But there's no magic, no wonder. As I yank on a pair of fishnet stockings, all I can think about are my lines and the hours ticking away to Tapis Noir. A small voice in the back of my head asks how I'll decide whom to kill. Mortal blood will only last a short time—if I want to stave off the visions for a while, I need someone with magical proclivities. I can only hope Mel found a way to invite a Shifter or witch or someone else beyond the mundane Montanans.

  My stomach rumbles and my pulse quickens with the thought.

  The rest of me wants to vomit.

  I stare at myself in the vanity mirror after the coat is on. There's more makeup lined against the glass than I know what to do with—vials of foundation and eye shadow and body glitter, all of it neatly arranged with a meticulous hand. I start applying foundation like Mel showed me, then paint on my eyebrows and rouge my cheeks. I watch that quiet Midwestern girl suffocate into obscurity under layers of paint and deceit. When I'm done, I straighten my blonde hair and grab a whip from the pile on the side table. I don't put on any of the jewelry in Mab's brimming cabinet. Instead, I loop a simple obsidian pendant around my neck. Penelope's necklace, hewn from the walls of Mab's underground kingdom.

  I wrap my fingers around the cool stone and feel the static trickle of magic. But no visions consume me, no messages from Kingston reach across the boundary between life and death. It's nothing more than a relic of what I've lost. As I stare at the woman in the mirror—a figure who is confident and seductive and everything I am not—I need every reminder I can get. I'm still the girl Mab screwed over. I'm only playing her game until I get my revenge. And if playing dress up keeps me alive long enough to get back at her, I'll damn well do it.

  Outside the trailer, I hear one of the crew calling out places, and I push myself away from the vanity and stride over to the door. My heart is hammering—even after a few weeks of doing this, I'm still no more comfortable in the role than I was the first night.

  That, and because when the final curtain falls, I'm going to have to commit murder.

  I'm so distracted as I open the door that I almost miss the apparition floating outside it. When I see him, my breath catches in my throat.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask. I pause inside the door, not willing to step out into the sunlight. Even though I know it offers no protection, the idea of having a door to slam in the Summer King's face is a mild comfort.

  “And to think, this is the girl who cowered in my kingdom.” Oberon's voice is milk and honey, every comforting memory laced into a single pitch. Yet as I stare at him, at his teak skin and curling beard and brown pinstripe suit, all I can think of is the fervor in his eyes when he slit Kingston's throat.

  “Don't make me ask again, Oberon,” I say.

  His hazel eyes are serious; they are the only parts of him that seem solid. The rest—from his bare feet to the antlers curling from his hair—is translucent. I can see the trailers and the tent through his wavering form.

  “I am not truly here,” he says, spreading his arms as though it should be obvious. “This is merely a shade. But we need to talk, you and I. You have been ignoring my summons.”

  Oh yes, his summons: notes left on browning leaves or messages of flowers sprouting in the grass outside my trailer. All of them begging me back to his kingdom like some lovesick stalker. All of them save for the last. That note was written in what looked like blood, on a piece of birch bark no bigger than my hand.

  Don't make me do this, it read.

  I never bothered to inquire further. I burned it like the rest.

  “I can't leave the troupe,” I say. “Or haven't you heard? Mab gave me her role.”

  He eyes me up and down, and I get the distinct impression he's undressing me in his mind—not like there's much to undress; Mab's wardrobe doesn't leave anything to the imagination. Apparently, in my past life, I had been Oberon's lover. And weapon. And captive. The thought of it still makes me a little nauseated.

  “So I see,” he muses. His eyes don't leave my chest. “The resemblance is striking.”

  “What do you want?” I ask again. This brings his gaze up.

  He sighs, as though what he's about to say truly troubles him.

  “I'm afraid I can no longer sit idly by,” he says. He watches the grass at his feet, which slowly twines up around his ankles. “Now that Mab has returned to her kingdom, it is clear that she is unwilling to give up the demon Kassia. A truce is no longer an option.”

  “You attacked us first,” I say.

  “That was my son,” he replies. “I never had a thirst for blood.”

  His lip twitches when he says it. The bastard knows precisely which buttons to push.

  “If you're just here to say you're declaring war, you can fuck off. We already know.”

  “Oh no, Vivienne,” he says, his eyes darting up to mine. Was he really just looking down my corset again? “War was declared long ago. This is a declaration of intent. Mab's actions have forced me to resort to less…appetizing measures. I must fight fire with fire, as it were.”

  “Get on with it. I have a show to run.”

  I've yet to meet a faerie that could get to the point.

  “You hold the demon and the key to the Dream Trade,” he says. “But now that Mab is out of the picture, you are, in essence, vulnerable. Unless you hand over Kassia, I will be forced to consider this company a spoil of war, one I shall take without hesitation. You swore yourself to me, don't you remember?”

  I grin.

  “I'm mortal: an oath means nothing. Besides, we both know you can't attack. You're weak. As you said, Mab controls the Dream and the demon.” And me. “What could you possibly have to match that?”

  “Is that your choice, then? Side with Mab and defy the Summer King?”

  I say nothing. It's not a choice I'm able to make; it's already been made for me, and he knows it.

  He sighs heavily. The grass at his feet wilts.

  “Then I'm afraid you will have to suffer along with your queen. I would have been merciful, Vivienne. My children, however, will not. They will make sure you burn with the rest of your troupe.”

  Then, in a flurry of dead grass, the apparition disappears.

  Chapter Three: Crimes of Passion

  For a few moments I can only stand there, staring at the space the shade of Oberon had occupied. I can't help but compare his words to Lilith's and feel the bile rise in my throat. I glance at the mountains on the horizon, half-expecting to see a demonic fire raging and burning its way toward us. But the mountains are static and beautiful in the evening light, a tear against the fabric of the sky. Everything is peaceful.

  “Five minutes!” someone shouts to my right, making me jump. I jog to my room and grab the top hat from its stand—a cast-iron cat—both of which appeared magically on my dresser the night I returned to the show. I glance at the ruby on the hat's brim. It glows with a diabolical inner light, the cracks shining like frozen lightning. I brush my finger across it and nearly yelp when a small shard comes off, a piece smaller than my pinky nail. The magical barrier keeping Kassia locked up is weaker than I feared. But there's no time to panic or try to fix it; I pocket the glinting piece and run to the back curtain.

  The whole troupe is already assembled there, game faces on. I spot Melody in her tight pinstripe suit and pink Marie Antoinette wig. Now that Kingston's gone, she's transitioned from magician's assistant to a magician herself—after all, she spent her entire life surrounded by Kingston's tricks. She knows his act better than anyone else, even if she does lack his magic. When I step next to one of the acrobats, the troupe's preshow chatter dies down to silence.

  I try not to let it affect me, try to pretend I don't even notice. I stand there gripping my silver-studded whip in one hand and wearing a perfectly painted expression of ease on my face. At least, that's what I hope it looks like. I've always had “
resting bitch face,” and for once it's paying off.

  One of the tech crew gives me the thumbs up. I take a deep breath. Showtime. Before nerves can catch up to me, I stride through the black curtain, and the dazzling lights of the center ring turn burn all my thoughts away.

  Everything onstage is glitter and brilliance; I can feel the hundred sets of eyes trained on me, can feel the anticipation as it builds, as dreams unfurl and weave into the chapiteau. It's impossible to see the audience through the glimmering spotlights trained on me, but I can see the shards of light cast over the crowd like a disco ball, my coat reflecting every miniscule movement. With one hand, I remove my hat and sweep it to the crowd, bowing down low. When I stand I try to adopt Mab's poise, her seductive smile. Tonight's not just a show. Tonight, I have darker business to do.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cirque des Immortels,” I call, my voice rising over the silent crowd. My pulse slows as routine draws in, as I speak the words Mab left on a notecard on my pillow, followed by the postscript, “Don't cock it up, dear.”

  “Tonight, we have a show to ensnare and entwine, filled with acts to allure you, hellish and divine. Tonight—tonight only—we offer you this, a night of ecstasy, a night of bliss. For once our show is over and through, for the very select—the most special of you—to our backstage, we cordially invite, to wine, to dine, and…delight. Curious? You should be. Just ask, and you'll know, but for now, sit back, relax, and enjoy our show.”

  Then I raise my whip and give it a single crack. The lights drop to darkness in an instant. As the next act's music begins, I run offstage.

  * * *

  I don't know when the Tapis Noir tent was erected, but when I step outside after the opener it's there, at the edge of the pitch, glowing purple against the oncoming night. The tent is a miniature version of the big top, complete with a black pennant hanging limp at its peak, but this tent is ringed by bodyguards in Armani suits and sunglasses—the Shifters' other role.