Mongrel

by K. Z. Snow

  “William,” Fan said as they lay face to face, “you must tell me something. And you must be completely forthright.” Tentatively, he touched Will’s cheek. “Do you secretly loathe me? Beneath all this heat that melts us together, might you harbor a cold contempt for me? For all Mongrels?”

  “What?” Those anxious words could’ve come from the washstand, as much sense as they made to Will. He tried to read Fan’s face but could only make out the glimmer of his eyes.

  “I won’t react badly if you confess to such feelings. I certainly wouldn’t hurt you. I swear on my honor, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you.”

  Will rose up on one elbow and peered at him. “Fan, what in the world…?”

  “Maybe it’s the nature of Pures to hate us. So how could I blame—”

  Will laid two fingers against Fan’s lips. “No,” he whispered, beginning to realize what had caused this uncertainty. The deeper Fan dug into the dark side of Purintonian policy, the more it must seem to him that Mongrels were a shunned race, despised by all humans.

  “No,” Will repeated. He eased back down to the pillow. “I care for you more than I’ve ever cared for any man. Except perhaps my father and uncle.” He removed his fingers and replaced them with his lips.

  Fan covered the side of Will’s face with one hand as he returned the kiss. Their lips parted reluctantly. Sighing, Fan rolled onto his back. “Then you might want to distance yourself from me. As much as I love having you here, I have to insist you stay away.”

  “I STILL can’t believe he sent me away, Simon.”

  “It would be wise to wash your hands of him.” Bentcross lit a cigar. Concealed by his aeropod, he and Will spoke in the south lot of Hunzinger’s Mechanical Circus. A sea breeze caught and stretched the fragrant cloud of smoke until it thinned.

  Will vacantly watched it dissipate. His glance shifted to the rear fence of the Gutter. “Wouldn’t it be equally wise for you to turn your back on Marrowbone?”

  Simon spat shreds of tobacco from his tongue. “That’s different.”

  “How is it different? He’s a vampire with a target over his heart. He’s staying in Taintwell. He’s acquainted with Fan, and he’ll certainly be involved in whatever—”

  “I’m not you,” Simon snapped. “That’s how it’s different. In the name of all that’s manly, Will, you’re little more than a child.” His attitude relaxed, and he smirked around the butt end of his cigar. “A damned appealing youth, granted, but a youth nonetheless. Sometimes when I see you dressed in those pantomime clothes, blustering away and waving a bottle through the air—”

  Will shot him a warning look. “Don’t speak of that.” Simon’s patronizing attitude would normally have been what irritated him, but that wasn’t the case now. Will didn’t want to be reminded of the so-called elixir he’d persuaded so many people to buy.

  Looking chastened, Simon lowered his eyes. His amusement had fled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He rolled his cigar between thumb and forefinger. “Imagine how I feel. I’ve actually drunk that stuff. Just the thought of it makes me want to retch.” He grimaced and shivered. “Gods, how did everything get so ugly?”

  “How did people get ugly?” Will kicked a stone and sent it skittering toward an OMT.

  Before they’d left Taintwell, Fan had told them about Twigby Hartshorn’s ordeal. And he’d told them about the composition of Dr. Bolt’s elixir. Even Simon’s cynicism had crumbled beneath the weight of those revelations.

  Will couldn’t bear the thought of having peddled that dreadful potion. His involvement in the scheme, innocent as that involvement was, made him ill. The scheme itself made him even sicker.

  Hands in pockets, Will considered what he would do next. “Distance be damned,” he muttered, more to himself than his companion. “I’ll not flee like a little girl and pretend none of this is happening.”

  Simon took a long pull on his cigar and squinted against the drift of smoke. “He’s only trying to protect you, you know.”

  Will nodded. That much was clear. Fan wanted to shield him not just from physical peril but also from emotional distress. They’d been growing close, opening their hearts to one another. Were any harm to come to either of them, the other would suffer.

  “It’s my guess Perfidor’s prepared to take some significant risks,” said Simon.

  “He has to.”

  “And his risks could put you in danger.”

  Will said nothing. He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts.

  “What will you do now? I imagine you’re not inclined to keep selling that… cannibal swill.”

  Will gave him an acerbic glance that said, Aren’t you perceptive.

  Simon’s mouth jumped into and out of a self-conscious smile. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looked at the sandy pebble- and trash-strewn ground, looked back at Will. “I don’t like the way you’re acting.”

  “I didn’t realize I had to shape my behavior to suit you.”

  Simon cleared his throat. “Maybe you’re not such a boy anymore.”

  “Maybe,” Will said dourly, “the world has aged me.” He pulled his hands from his pockets. “Do you know of anybody on Whitesbain Plank Road who’d be willing to keep a caravan on his property? Just temporarily?”

  Simon lifted his eyebrows but asked no questions. He considered a moment, then mentioned a few names. “I think Tarbender at 831 would be the best bet. He has plenty of land, a large barn, and knows how to keep his mouth shut. There’d be a price attached, of course.”

  “Of course.” Will adjusted his jacket on his shoulders. “Thank you. I have to go now.”

  “But what—”

  Heedless, Will strode toward the residents’ gate.

  AFTER washing up and changing into his most comfortable clothing, Will first sought out a man he knew only as Worley the Wagoner and arranged to have his caravan moved to the property of a Mr. Tarbender at 831 Whitesbain Plank Road. He explained that he’d sold his two draft horses after arriving at the Circus, so Worley would have to use his own team.

  “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to accompany you, but try to be underway by dawn,” Will said. He paid Worley and handed him an envelope. “Give this to Tarbender and assure him I won’t be there long. I must head to the northwest soon, for I have a desperately ill family member who needs tending to.”

  That bit of business concluded, Will returned to his caravan. He knelt on the floor in front of his under-bed storage space and opened the carved wood doors. There sat four new crates of Bloodroot Elixir, likely delivered late last night or early that morning by a muscle-bound man named Harry Barrow. Since Will kept his strongbox well hidden, in a secret compartment behind the false rear wall of a cluttered cabinet, he rarely locked his caravan. Nothing else within was worth stealing. Therefore, Harry could make deliveries whether Will was there or not.

  Although he recoiled from the sight of those crates, Will wrestled one out of the space and looked it over. His scrutiny verified a thought he’d had on the way back from Taintwell—that he’d never seen a full paper label on any crate he’d ever received. His address was always stenciled on the wood—Wm. Marchman, Caravan Park, HMC—but the usual labels the railroad insisted on, the ones that specified contents, point of origin, and shipping date, had never been present. Why?

  Now, he had his answer. They’d been torn off. The stripping had been hasty, too. Ragged sections of the labels remained wherever the adhesive kept paper clinging tenaciously to wood.

  Will hauled one crate after another into the light and studied their exteriors. On one, a portion of the product name was visible; on another, the same along with a number. The third crate finally yielded what Will was looking for: an address, or part of an address.

  Warehouse 4, Seagrass Lane.

  It could be an address in Purinton, but it could just as easily be in another oceanside city or province. Will seemed to recall Hunzinger telling him that Dr. Bolt’s laborato
ry was in Carrington. However, Carrington was an inland province. And the name Seagrass Lane sounded vaguely familiar to him.

  Will arranged the crates the way they were and, donning a straw hat and tinted eyeglasses, struck out for the boardwalk.

  THORNY WOOD, Fanule scrawled on his parlor wall. Hand still poised to write, he skipped backward and waited for inspiration. He bounded forward. Betrayed by cock. Why? Must ask. Chalk powder dusted the air.

  Fanule dashed around the room, his gaze flitting over the fragments of inscription. They lunged to the right, as if about to attack enemy words in the kitchen. But there were no words on the kitchen walls.

  The faded ghosts of older thoughts, not fully laid to rest by sponge and scrub brush, showed behind the stark white lines of their newly birthed cousins. Fanule tried not to be distracted by them.

  He drew a circle, made it a wheel, wrote HMC on the inner hub, P on the outer hub, slashed in spokes and assigned them names: traitors, scorpions, hunters, jailers, mutilators. Around the rim, Mongrels and Dog King.

  Suddenly Fanule froze, staring at his work. He had no place for William. Not in the hub or on the spokes or around the rim. No place whatsoever.

  “That’s good,” he muttered, nodding in approval, convincing himself. “It’s for the best.”

  He outlined a wing and quickly decided it was useless alone. He felt his face getting wet as he shakily sketched another wing and wrote the letter W inside.

  “No.”

  Because the body to which the wings were attached was in danger of being destroyed, which meant the wings could be destroyed.

  Frantically, he tried erasing the second wing with the side of his hand. It wouldn’t go away. He only hurt himself by trying to make it disappear. Stumbling backward, he fell into a chair. The chalk dropped from his burning hand.

  “You can’t stay,” he said to the smudged outline. “Go benefit another.” He swiped at his damp face. “You snagged no ribbons anyway.”

  SUN was always good for business. The Circus teemed. Today, a large crowd benefited Will as much as it benefited Hellzinger. As Will hurried unnoticed down the boardwalk, it occurred to him that the nickname he’d given his boss was far more apt than he ever could have imagined.

  He found an exhibit that didn’t appear to be drawing many people. More important, it was adjacent to one of the planned Demimen attractions. He approached the ticket booth and glanced beneath the slightly raised hand of the homachinus within. There in the counter were two slots. When a coin was dropped in the one on the left, the mechanical hand lowered, pressing a button between the slots. As the hand rose, a ticket in the form of a metal tab emerged from the slot on the right.

  Rather than use his employee pass, which, for all he knew, could track his movements throughout the Circus, Will gained his admission like any other visitor: he paid for a ticket.

  When the lock on the building’s door disengaged, he stepped into the small, dim lobby. The mingled odors of dust, machine oil, and damp, musty wood weighted the air. Three turnstiles set within a partial wall had their own corresponding slots. INSERT TICKET FIRMLY instructed a small sign above each one.

  Will went up to the one in the middle and stuck his ticket into a tube that extended from the top of the turnstile. The metal tab briefly caught in place, a click sounded, and the tab rattled into some concealed receptacle. Will pushed through to the inner lobby.

  It was spare. The only decorations, if they could be called that, were grainy photographs and gaudy posters that served to advertise other of the park’s attractions. None of this was new to Will. He’d made a tour of the Mechanical Circus when he’d first contracted with Hunzinger to sell medicine here, and he’d subsequently revisited many of the exhibits. Their ingenuity intrigued him.

  A full wall stood perhaps ten feet from the turnstiles. It had a door marked ENTER on the far left. The door on the right was an exit. Will went inside.

  He didn’t bother examining the dioramas that snicked and clattered behind a wall-to-wall glass pane. In one, fabricated bees bounced into and out of a cut-away hive tucked inside a cut-away tree trunk. In another, ants toiled through a maze of tunnels below the fabricated grass. Three brightly painted butterflies, their wings beating, rose and fell on nearly invisible wires. A fanciful insect reared and lowered itself on one of the tree branches, apparently attacking some hapless prey, and between two leafy saplings, a bristly spider spun a web. Will knew that when the web was complete, the spider would reverse its course and the web would spool back into its fat, black body. Then it would start over and spin the same web again.

  Clever as these mechanisms were, Will was more interested in finding a passage to the adjacent building. He eased aside the narrow, dark velvet curtain to the right of the display, then forced open the folding metal gate behind it. A push-button on the wall would send light spilling from the electric bulb in the ceiling; the button directly beneath it would stop the flow. Rather than turn the light on and then, perhaps, have to scramble to turn it off, Will reached for an electric torch that was clipped to the wall immediately to the left of the gate. He activated its beam and swept it through the room.

  A bank of busy machinery—levers and gears, flywheels and pistons, and a score of other parts Will was unfamiliar with—worked to enliven the metal insects the public saw. From what Will had heard, Hunzinger was experimenting with small electrical motors to supplement and one day replace the steam power he still primarily relied upon.

  No matter, though. The Circus was now anathema to Will. He would just as soon see it fall to ruin.

  Creeping and feeling his way through the room, trying to steer clear of all obstacles both moving and stationary, Will finally found a door that could lead only to the closed exhibit. The string of buildings along the boardwalk all shared interior walls. They all had a sublevel, too, of which most visitors were unaware. Although stairs likely connected the boardwalk elevation of each exhibit to the lower rooms, Will didn’t want to crawl around the floor in search of a trapdoor. He especially didn’t want to make the descent without knowing what awaited him in the ground-level rooms. Workers could be down there, and he’d have no way of explaining his intrusion.

  So, after nudging aside some tools that lay on the floor, Will pressed an ear to the door he’d found. It was difficult to hear past the clatter of machinery at his back, but he couldn’t detect any sounds on the other side of the wall. Carefully, he turned the knob. The door opened.

  Chapter Twelve

  FANULE opened his eyes to the waning light of afternoon. He was in a chair in his parlor and felt like a flaccid balloon. Whatever elemental stuff remained in him wasn’t enough to buoy him. Hunger. Nebulous sorrow.

  This is unacceptable, he thought as his bleary gaze roamed over the wall he faced. Disjointed script, crazed diagrams—all bore testimony to his irresponsibility.

  Take control, Fanule, damn you. Take control.

  He’d been lax about too many things. Overwhelmed by the crisis facing Taintwell and his growing intimacy with a purely human man, he’d been loosening his grip on the reins of his life.

  No more.

  He went to the kitchen—one thing at a time, and first things first—where he fixed a hearty meal and slowly ate it all. Then he brewed his medicine and drank it down. Clancy had made the last cup but made it too weak. That wasn’t his fault; he’d only been trying to help.

  Take control, you idiot.

  At least that morning, early that morning, Fanule had been functioning well enough to bathe and to take Cloudburst for a ride. At least he’d had some hours of focus. Now, summoning the thoughts born of his earlier clarity, he trained his mind on how to proceed.

  As he cleaned the parlor wall yet again, he tried to impose order on the chaos displayed there. His mania had spawned some useful insights, as it often did, but he had to cull them out. Carefully, as if he were paving a walkway with flagstones or building a fireplace with bricks, he concentrated on choosing the righ
t pieces and putting them in the right places. They all must fit together.

  Fanule pondered his scribblings before scrubbing them away. The swirling sponge stilled when he came upon the references to his lover. His feelings for Will Marchman remained the one element in this structure that he couldn’t control. All the tonic in the world was powerless to change that. All the clever stratagems anybody could devise and all the determination he could muster were useless. There was nothing Fanule could do but try to ensure that William remained safe.

  THE structure destined to house one of Hunzinger’s Demimen attractions was dark and mostly empty… except for what looked like a boxing ring in the middle of the floor. Even the omnipresent glass wall that kept curious visitors away from exhibits hadn’t yet been installed.

  Will’s torch was rapidly dimming, so he directed its feeble beam over the ring. Several papers curled over the ropes. He lifted one and unrolled it. A lighting schematic, he thought, indicating placement of gas jets, a ceiling fixture, even footlights. There were diagrams full of lines, geometric forms, and distance measurements.

  Will wasn’t sure what he hoped to find, but this paper didn’t do him much good. He lifted and unrolled the next batch. He thought he saw vaguely human figures on the topmost page, but the weak puddle of light coming from the lantern failed to make any details visible.

  “Damn it all,” Will whispered.

  Muffled voices drifted up from the floor. People were obviously moving about on the sublevel directly below him.

  On impulse, Will stuffed the papers he held in an inner pocket of his jacket and moved back to the rear room of the Busy Bugs exhibit. He mouthed a curse when he heard a conversation among three people in the viewing room, then realized they likely wouldn’t give a second thought to a fellow emerging from the machine room. His old straw hat and indigo drillich jacket befitted a workingman.