Mongrel

by K. Z. Snow

  “Ah, the Gutter,” Marrowbone said. “Yes, I’ve dined there. But you just told me—”

  “When did I ever abide by others’ rules, Clancy?” Fanule wanted to wash himself, but he didn’t want to strip in front of Marrowbone. That might have conveyed the wrong message. “Will you be in Taintwell for a while?”

  “Yes, I expect so. Why?”

  “I’d like to visit with you more, but right now I need to clean up and be on my way.”

  “Go ahead and clean up,” said Marrowbone with an indifferent lift of the hand. “I’ll give you a ride to the Circus. You’ll get there much faster.” When Fanule hesitated, Marrowbone laughed. “Don’t worry, Fan. I have no designs on you. I’ve embraced celibacy. But if it would make you more comfortable, I’ll wait in the parlor.” He rose and left the kitchen.

  Fanule let water flow into the kitchen’s sink and quickly began to undress. “Why are you celibate?” he called out.

  “For the same reason you’re not. It’s an indulgence.”

  Frowning, Fanule ran a damp, lightly soaped sponge over his body. An image of William again loomed in his mind. He scrubbed more vigorously. “An indulgence of what?”

  “My vanity,” answered Marrowbone. “I used to satisfy my vanity by offering myself. Now I do it by withholding the offer.” He paused. “By the way, are you meeting a lover?”

  Fanule rinsed and dried himself, combed his hair, and began to don his clothing. He ignored Marrowbone’s question.

  Soft laughter came from the parlor. “Well, it seems I have more of an answer than I expected. Not only are you going to see a lover, but he actually means something to you. And he’s thoroughly human.” After a pause, Marrowbone added, “Poor Fan.”

  WILL sat at his small dining table in a state of suspended animation. When three raps shattered the wagon’s stillness, he leapt from his chair and nearly knocked down the lamp that shed a soft veil of light from its cast-iron wall bracket. He couldn’t seem to contain his excitement, couldn’t keep from flinging open the door.

  “Thank you for the invitation.” Fan stepped inside the wagon and closed the door at his back.

  “You’re welcome.” Will was mesmerized by the sight of him. Fanule’s collar-length hair looked like a swirling mass of storm clouds; his eyes, two shimmers of lightning.

  Before Will could take another breath, their arms locked around each other. They pulled close, clutching at clothing, pressing their bodies together from chests to hips. Fan held Will’s face and kissed his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes. When their lips again met, they were hot and moist and open.

  “Gods, I love your mouth,” Fan murmured, pressing his fingertips to it.

  Will’s tongue danced against them. With a hissing intake of breath, Fan withdrew his fingers and replaced them with his tongue. This prolonged kiss was the most fevered they’d yet exchanged. Will got so hard so quickly, his trousers seemed ready to rip open.

  He pushed Fan’s workingman’s jacket off his shoulders and down his arms. Without lifting his lips from Will’s face and throat, Fan tossed the jacket toward a chair.

  Three knocks sounded at the wagon’s door just as Will began to rub his lover’s ready cock. Breathing heavily, the men separated. Fan briefly cupped his crotch, as if trying to will away the noticeable ridge of his jack.

  “Damn it,” Will whispered. He ineptly smoothed his hair and tucked in his shirt as he moved toward the door.

  When he cracked it open, a blizzard might as well have greeted him.

  Simon Bentcross stood there feigning humility, his head lowered, the broad brim of his hat clutched in his fingers. “I hope you don’t mind I’m a few days late.” He boldly flattened a hand on the door and pushed it open farther. When he looked up and spotted Fan, his jaw fell. In fact, his whole face seemed on the verge of dropping to the floor. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  Stupefied, Will swiveled his head to glance at his invited guest.

  “I could ask the same question,” Fanule said. His gaze shifted from intruder to host. “But I think I know the answer.” He grabbed his jacket from the chair. “I’d best be going now.”

  “Fan, don’t.” Will grasped his sleeve as he moved toward the door.

  “Fan?” Simon echoed as he raised his brows. He blocked Fanule’s path. “Perfidor, what in the name of—”

  Fanule glowered at him, shutting him up.

  Will finally overcame his shock and stepped forward. “Mr. Bentcross, you’re no longer welcome here. Please leave.”

  “But….” Simon pointed at Fanule. Then, slowly, he smiled. “I’ll be damned. The Dog King is fucking the pup.”

  Fan cocked his arm with such speed and force, Will had no chance to intervene. His fist shot out and connected with Simon’s face. The blow sent Simon tumbling backward down the wagon’s steps… and into the arms of a willowy figure whose hair seemed spun from hoarfrost.

  “Well,” said the stranger, supporting the stuporous Simon with ease, “few men have fallen for me quite as hard as this.” He lowered Simon to the ground.

  To Will’s astonishment, Fan started laughing. He curled an arm around Will’s shoulders and kissed his temple. “It appears we’re drowning in old lovers tonight.” Then he addressed the man who knelt over Simon. “Clancy, either keep him occupied or take him far away, would you?”

  “I’d be delighted,” said the wraithlike stranger.

  Fanule closed the wagon’s door and turned to Will. “Bentcross was the one you were waiting for on Friday night?”

  Flustered and ashamed, Will nodded. “We’ve… gotten together occasionally. Very occasionally. I never dreamed he’d show up tonight. I’m so sorry.”

  “Do you have feelings for him?” Fan asked, more gently than Will felt he deserved.

  “The only feelings we ever had for each other were in our—” Blushing, Will’s gaze flickered to and from Fanule’s face. “I think you know what I mean.”

  Damn, he felt like a cretin, and for a half-dozen reasons: getting involved with Bentcross in the first place; not telling Fan about him sooner; not telling Simon it was over and to stay away from him; wanting to beg Fan’s forgiveness, which was a ridiculous impulse given the brevity of their acquaintance. And, finally, for behaving like an awkward, smitten boy afraid of speaking bluntly.

  “I didn’t handle this very well,” he muttered, dropping into a chair.

  Smiling, Fan sat across from Will and reached for his right hand, since his left now supported his chin. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You were under no obligation to tell me about your previous lovers. After all, I didn’t tell you about mine. We haven’t known each other long enough to have gotten that far.”

  Will suddenly remembered the man who was outside with the bounty hunter. He lifted his head from his hand. “So, who is that white-haired fellow? You obviously know each other. What’s he doing here?”

  “That’s Clancy Marrowbone,” Fan said. “Remember me telling you about him at the hotel?”

  Will’s eyes rounded. He nodded and swallowed. “Marrowbone’s a—”

  “Vampire, yes. We were lovers ten years ago. He’s visiting Taintwell and happened to be waiting for me at my house this evening.”

  “But… why is he here, at the Circus? Did he follow you? Is he intent on winning you back?” The mere possibility made Will queasy.

  “No, that’s not it,” Fan said, waving a hand to further dismiss the notion. “He actually brought me here. I would’ve arrived much later if he hadn’t.”

  “He brought you here.”

  “Yes.”

  Will tried to make sense of this. “Oh, does he own an aeropod? Did he land somewhere outside the fence?”

  “No, he doesn’t need an aeropod.”

  Puzzled, Will frowned. “Then how could he have brought you here faster than you could’ve brought yourself?”

  Fan, who’d been running his fingertips over his forehead, let his hand fall to the tabletop with a thump. “W
illiam, have you no familiarity with vampires?”

  “I…. No.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Fan’s almost matched in this light, although the green one remained a bit paler than the violet. His hair, gleaming black against the chiffon yellow of the caravan’s walls, looked like a tempest of commas on a piece of parchment.

  Will realized he shouldn’t be surprised this sensuously exotic man had once had a vampire as a lover. Their liaison conjured irresistible images. The most innocent was that Marrowbone’s hair must’ve looked stunning as it caught on Perfidor’s.

  “William, you have nothing to fear,” Fan said. “Believe me. Please don’t be upset.” When Will didn’t respond, Fan leaned across the table. “Are you upset?”

  “I’m not sure. But I did feel like a rare leg of lamb when your friend looked at me.”

  Fan grinned. “Does that bother you?”

  “No, of course not. It’s always been my fondest wish that someone view me as food.”

  Laughter burst through Fan’s grin. His amusement was somehow reassuring. He grasped Will’s hand and smiled into his eyes. “Clancy wouldn’t dream of harming you. He knows you’re important to me. And neither of us has any interest in rekindling a fire that died so long ago.” He lowered his head and slowly pressed his lips to the back of Will’s hand. “I give you my word.”

  Will fluttered inside. “Can you trust him to let us have our privacy?”

  “Completely.”

  “And to keep Simon away?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Will got up, went to the door, and latched it. After he’d walked the short distance back to the table, he reached up to extinguish the kerosene lamp, then lowered himself onto Fan’s lap, facing him. He twined his arms around Fan’s head and buried his fingers in that melee of curls.

  “Then fuck me,” he said against his lover’s mouth.

  “Only after I suck you to the breaking point,” his lover responded.

  “Agreed.” Hungrily, Will kissed him, eager to pick up where they’d left off. “I swear, that’s the sweetest deal I’ve ever struck.”

  ONE or two hours before dawn, Fanule awoke to a loud noise. He tried very carefully to disengage himself from Will and straighten his bent limbs, but the size and confinement of the raised bed made movement difficult. After a series of subtle shifts, he was still contained by three walls, a ceiling, and his lover’s sleeping body.

  It was a pleasant form of entrapment. After kissing the fragrant nape of Will’s neck, Fanule settled back in.

  Bits of their post-lovemaking conversation drifted through his mind. He thought of Will’s past, how his happy childhood had been twice marred by tragedy: the loss of his younger sister to smallpox when he was only eight; the death of his parents six years later in a ferry explosion. After that blow, an eccentric but loving uncle had come to his rescue. Will had traveled with and learned from him until the uncle had passed away three years ago.

  Fanule could see how all these influences had shaped the man he’d come to care for.

  He’d also confided in Will. About the father he’d never known, the mother who’d fled Taintwell following his brutal ear-cropping, the extremes of behavior that plagued him when he didn’t take his special tonic.

  It wasn’t easy sharing this most consequential fact of his life. Fanule had done so with trepidation. He didn’t want to frighten Will away, but withholding the information wouldn’t have been fair. They were growing close, and that gave Will the right to know what stuff his lover was made of.

  “My mother had a similar affliction,” Will had said—the last response Fanule would’ve expected. “She’d bustle about like a woman possessed, then take to her bed for days on end, weeping.”

  The revelation had left Fanule thunderstruck. He’d never heard of anybody else laboring under this curse. He’d always supposed that if such people existed, they were locked away in places like Cindermound.

  “How did you and your father manage?” he’d asked.

  “We just did,” Will had answered, “because we worshipped her. We knew she didn’t choose to be that way. When my mother was on an even keel, she was a joy to be with—bright and charming, caring and kind. So we were patient. We learned when to leave her alone and when to come to her aid.”

  “Was the effort worth it?”

  “Yes, of course. Any effort that stems from love is worth it.”

  Fanule had had only one thought following this exchange. Maybe I can dare to dream.

  He’d never believed intimacy beyond the physical was possible for him. Even now, he found the prospect remote. But at least he’d been given a shred of hope.

  With another upsurge of gratitude, he trailed the fingers of one hand down the smooth dips and rises of Will’s back, leaned forward, and kissed a mole on his shoulder.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Stirring, Will mumbled unintelligibly.

  A terrified wail cut through the Gutter. Within seconds, a thud made the caravan shudder. Bottles clinked in the storage cabinet beneath the bed. A muffled curse seeped through the floor.

  Chapter Eight

  “WHAT the…?” Startled awake, Will nearly tumbled to the rug. An arm tightened around his waist to keep him on the bed.

  Yes… Fan’s arm, its black hair glimmering briefly in a cone of light that swept through the wagon from outside.

  “Stay here,” Will said, leaping down from the mattress.

  “You’re not going out there alone.”

  Will turned. “Don’t leave the wagon, Fan. It’s too dangerous for you to be seen.” He scrambled into a pair of trousers and an undershirt, turned again, and quickly kissed the man who was on the verge of easing off the bed. “Damn it, stay here.”

  After getting on his shoes—the Gutter was strewn with too much trash for a person to walk about barefooted—Will dashed outside.

  The commotion had moved past his wagon toward the southeast. Lantern light bobbed through the darkness around a beam from an electric torch. Will tried listening to the distant voices but could only make out their tone. Low and tight. Angry, urgent, flustered.

  His breath caught when two figures suddenly appeared in front of him.

  Simon Bentcross and Marrowbone.

  Will jerked backward when he saw the vampire. “What are you two doing here?”

  The men exchanged glances.

  “I was sleeping under your wagon,” said Simon. His tone soured. “Trying to get rid of the headache your friend gave me.”

  “And I was simply waiting to see if your friend needed my assistance in getting home,” said Marrowbone. “I’ll be leaving shortly. Dawn is approaching.”

  Will got the distinct impression more had been taking place beneath his wagon, but he let the matter go. At least this unlikely pair had kept to themselves. “What’s been happening out here?”

  “Several men chasing someone, from what I could tell,” said Marrowbone.

  A shot rang out. Although it was difficult to pinpoint the exact location of the sound, an abrupt chill lifted the hair on Will’s neck and arms. There’d never before been any violence worse than fisticuffs at the Circus.

  He circled around his wagon to get a better vantage point. All he could see were other residents of the Gutter who’d been drawn outdoors by the ruckus. They stood huddled together in small, murmuring groups. Farther away, smudges of illumination appeared, disappeared, reappeared. The chase was still on.

  A distant voice rose in frustration. Another joined it. One by one, the lights of the pursuers winked out.

  “Perfidor,” Marrowbone whispered at Will’s back.

  “Shit!” Will sprinted around his wagon to see where Fan might be but couldn’t spot him anywhere. “Shit!” He spun to look behind him as someone grasped his arm. It was Marrowbone, not Fan. “I told him to stay inside!” he said, straining to keep his voice muted, to keep his concern from shrieking through.

  “He’ll be al
l right. It’s too dark for him to be seen. Once he’s off Circus property, there’s nothing Hunzinger’s men can do to him.”

  “Yes there is.” Because if they found him, it wouldn’t matter if he was inside or outside the fence. It wouldn’t matter, because Hellzinger despises him. “You can move faster than I,” Will said to the vampire. “You can do things I can’t. Please see to it he’s safe.”

  In a blink, Marrowbone was gone. The only sign of his presence as well as his departure was a pastel smear that swiped through the air before Will’s eyes.

  He stood there for a moment, catching his breath and listening to the noises wafting around him. None revealed much of anything. His neighbors still conversed quietly. Doors opened and closed. Footsteps whispered through the sand and occasionally sent up crunching sounds when they passed over broken glass or discarded bones.

  No sign now of the pursuers. They might have exited the Gutter to search along the railroad tracks to the west or the beach to the east. Will’s only hope was that Fan had stayed out of their way.

  He shambled back to his wagon’s front steps and sat near the top of the flight. Elbows set on knees, he shoved his hands into his hair.

  “What a night it’s been,” said a male voice.

  Will looked up.

  “Where’s Clancy?” Simon asked.

  “Who?”

  “Marrowbone.”

  “He left.”

  “Temporarily or permanently?”

  “He didn’t say. Do you know him?”

  Bentcross hesitated. “Now I do.”

  Will uttered a weary laugh. Simon’s disheveled clothing bore mute testimony to how his night had gone. “I don’t think you can kill a vampire by impaling him with your cock, Simon.”

  “Why would I want to kill him?” Bentcross smiled as he took a seat below Will. “Besides, I’m not certified to hunt and slay vampires. Fucking, however, requires no special training. Speaking of which, when did you and Perfidor get so cozy?”

  “That’s none of your business.” One side of Will’s mouth lifted. “Didn’t Fan make that point forcefully enough?”