Mongrel

by K. Z. Snow

  Just as Will returned the electric torch to its wall clip and got up the gumption to walk out, the voices faded and the exit door thumped closed. He quickly slipped out of the building and into the stream of boardwalk strollers.

  He had to see Fan. To hell with this banishment that was supposed to be for his own good. Either he’d take the train to Taintwell or he’d ride to Whitesbain Plank Road tomorrow morning with Worley and get to Taintwell from there.

  Just as Will rounded the corner of the Glass Palace, he spied Daisy Purse, a lavender parasol protecting her painted skin from the sun. She was talking and laughing with two other women. An idea struck Will, and he walked up to the group.

  With a tip of the hat and a bow of the head, he humbly excused himself and asked to speak with Daisy. Her friends exchanged arch smiles, then sashayed away, whispering to each other.

  Daisy seemed inordinately pleased that Will had approached her, and he hoped the reason for his approach wouldn’t pique her indignation. If she was Hunzinger’s mistress, and the evidence certainly pointed that way, he was about to take a big risk.

  Daisy folded her parasol as she and Will sat on one of the many bower-shaded benches scattered throughout the Circus grounds. Will removed his hat and tinted glasses. Awkwardly, he tried exchanging pleasantries with Daisy, but she wasn’t the kind of woman who had patience for small talk.

  “Why aren’t you working?” she asked, eyeing Will’s coarse clothing.

  “I ran out of elixir.” Taking a clue from Simon, Will surreptitiously scanned the crowd. He saw nobody he recognized. “But I may have to forgo selling for longer than a day. I have a family member who’s quite ill.”

  Daisy curled a hand over Will’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes, well, these things happen. They often can’t be anticipated.” Will sighed despondently. “I just hope to be here next season when the Circus’s new attractions open. I know there are always special festivities when Mr. Hunzinger adds something special to the park.”

  Daisy dismissively flapped a hand. “Too crowded. Too… frenzied.” She daintily poked at her hair, as if the mere mention of so much activity had left her disheveled.

  “I am curious about the Demimen exhibits,” Will said. “It sounds as if they’ll be unique. Groundbreaking, actually.”

  Daisy’s entire demeanor changed. She lost her animation and, aside from lowering her eyelids, went still as a stone.

  “Daisy?” Will leaned toward her. “Is something wrong?”

  “I despise that whole concept,” she said tightly.

  “Why? I hear it will benefit men crippled in the last war.”

  Daisy uttered a single, astringent laugh.

  “Won’t it?”

  “It will only benefit veterans,” she said, “if they have something to gain from the misery of Branded Mongrels.”

  Will’s heart jigged. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  Indecisively, Daisy touched her hat, smoothed her dress, and repositioned her parasol. “I’d rather not think about the Demimen. The subject upsets me.” Composing herself, she looked at Will. “Now what was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

  Will knew he couldn’t press her further. He might’ve tried if they knew each other better, but they were only acquaintances. “Oh. I, uh, simply wanted to let you know I may be gone for a while. Maybe not, but in case I am, I didn’t want you to worry.” Will fidgeted. Why would she worry, you fool? Just because she’d like to see what’s in your trousers? “I don’t like… people to be unnecessarily concerned about me.”

  Daisy blinked at him. “Well. That was kind of you.”

  “I must go now,” Will said as he rose from the bench. “Unless there’s something you would like to talk about.”

  He was hoping, of course, that the Demimen weighed so heavily on Daisy’s mind she would welcome the opportunity to unburden herself. And perhaps divulge more of Hunzinger’s dirty secrets. But, judging by the smile that touched her lips, she’d completely misinterpreted Will’s interest.

  Her slender fingers reached out and skated down the back of his hand. “Why Mr. Marchman…. Might you, in your endearing, bashful way, be trying to coax a confession out of me?” That smile was still there, underscoring the suggestion in her wide, ingénue eyes.

  Flushed and flustered, Will didn’t know how to disengage himself. “No,” he said abruptly. It was all he could do not to yank his hand away from her fingertips. “I don’t know what you mean. You needn’t confess anything to me, Daisy.”

  “I will if you want me to.”

  The imp of the perverse began to creep up on Will. He wondered how the persistent Daisy would react if he said, I have a confession of my own. If you were Fanule Perfidor—yes, the Dog King—I would free my jack and brush it against your lips. And your lips would open to it, eagerly.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time to hear confessions, Daisy,” Will said with a nervous laugh. “I do have to rush off now. I’m glad I saw you.” He smiled, bowed slightly, and strode away.

  His mind spun with what he’d seen and heard since returning to the Circus. Feeling driven to do more—talk with his neighbors in the Gutter, perhaps, or find Harry Barrow and inquire further into the shipments of Dr. Bolt’s elixir—Will fell into a jog. Then, fearing he might draw attention to himself by running, he soon lapsed back into a brisk stroll.

  He entered the Gutter and headed for his wagon, keeping a sharp eye on the residents who were out and about in case he saw Harry or anybody else he knew well enough to engage in conversation. Some employees who’d been with the Circus for a while seemed privy to a good deal of behind-the-scenes information.

  Only… something was wrong. Will saw a semicircle of people up ahead, clustered around….

  He ran toward the group, dodging children and laundry lines, fire pits and stumps for sitting. It was his caravan that had drawn the gawkers. His home. No smoke billowed into the sky, so it couldn’t have been on fire. So maybe a fight was going on near the foot of the steps, or somebody had dropped dead.

  Heart thundering, Will pulled up short behind the loose perimeter of onlookers. His stomach seemed to plummet to the ground and splash cold water up through his veins.

  “There he is now!” a woman shrilled.

  Heads turned. Countless pairs of eyes bore through Will. His skin prickled as he stared at the open door of his caravan.

  The two Strongarms who stood sentry at the foot of the steps swung into action. They walked forward and demanded the crowd disperse.

  “Be on your way. There’s nothing to see here,” said one of them.

  “Get back to your caravans and tend to your own business,” said the other.

  Will stood rooted to the spot as his neighbors grudgingly trickled around him and shuffled away. His gaze was still glued to his violated wagon. He vaguely noticed the Strongarms moving toward him, could almost feel the grip of their hands on his wrists and shoulders.

  Then they stopped, apparently in response to a raised, halting hand that had appeared in the doorway. Like a highwayman who’d taken possession of a coach, Alphonse Hunzinger appeared. With a brusque, dictatorial wave of the arm, he summoned Will inside.

  Numbly, Will moved forward and mounted the steps. The Strongarms assumed their original positions. Before he even set foot inside, he could tell his wagon had been ransacked.

  Hunzinger sat at his small table.

  “What’s going on?” Will asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  His dismal, disbelieving gaze moved through the interior of his small home—over the gaping cabinets, their doors flung open and contents in disarray; over the mattress that was skewed out of alignment and the bedclothes heaped in a corner, as if they’d been thrown there; over the pretty shawl that was bunched toward the back of his coldbox.

  Then Will noticed his collar box lying open on the table, just inches from Hunzinger’s beefy red hands, and he knew what
was going on.

  “Sit down,” Hunzinger said, his face and voice grim.

  Will pulled out the second chair and sat.

  “Where were you?”

  “On the boardwalk.” Will forced himself to look at Hunzinger, not the mess on the tabletop. “I wanted to check on my stand. I was just looking for Harry to have him bring more elixir up there when I saw”—Will swallowed to moisten his throat—“this.”

  Hunzinger drummed his fingers on the table. “Where were you yesterday evening and through the night and into this morning?”

  “I went into the city.” Will feigned embarrassment. It wasn’t difficult. The discomfiture he felt was quite real. “I met a woman, and we… had some fun.”

  Hunzinger actually blushed. He cleared his throat. “I assume you’re aware of the incident that took place in the Caravan Park two nights ago.”

  “Yes. The commotion woke me. I came outside, like many of my neighbors.”

  “A few of those neighbors,” Hunzinger said, folding his hands on the table, “thought they saw strangers near your wagon.”

  Will drew deeper from his reservoir of acting ability. “What kind of strangers? There were men, women, and children milling about and wandering all over the place.”

  For the first time, Hunzinger’s smugness faltered. “We didn’t get very good descriptions of those unknown individuals, but three different people linked them to your wagon.”

  Trying to look flabbergasted, Will put a hand to his forehead. “And that’s why my home was ripped apart? Because some drunken or half-asleep Gutter resident gossiped to another about ‘mysterious strangers’ near my wagon, and the gossip was spread to a third person, and then someone deemed it fact?”

  Again, Hunzinger cleared his throat. Putting stock in the observations and speculations of Gutter residents didn’t suggest a very incisive or discerning mind—at least, that’s how Hunzinger would see it—and Will hoped the Big Mister would be shamed enough to back off. But that didn’t happen.

  Instead, he plucked something from his vest pocket and lifted it between his index and middle fingers. He planted his elbow with a thud on the tabletop. “And how do you explain this?”

  Fan’s calling card.

  As soon as he’d seen his collar box upended, Will had feared the card had been discovered. But he’d figured, or hoped, he’d be left alone if he could call into question the reason for this search.

  He should’ve known things wouldn’t go that smoothly. Especially now that Fan was a marked man.

  “What is it?” Will asked, putting on a scowl of befuddlement.

  Hunzinger repositioned the card so that he held its edges between his thumb and index finger. He thrust it in front of Will’s face.

  “Is that supposed to mean something?” Will asked in vexation.

  “Why are you keeping Fanule Perfidor’s card? When and how did you get it?”

  “It must have been months ago. I’d forgotten I had it. I can’t even recall what he looks like.”

  “Why is it in your possession, Mr. Marchman?”

  Will shrugged. “He obviously gave it to me.”

  Hunzinger leaned forward and glared. “When? Where? Why?” The words, carried on a raised voice, seemed bitten off at their ends.

  “I believe it was….” Will lowered his eyes and moved them back and forth, as if trying to recall. “Yes, shortly after I started selling here. A tall man approached my stand and asked if I had an exclusive contract with the Mechanical Circus or if I was free to sell elsewhere as well. He said his village was organizing some kind of annual festival, or considering it, and he was looking for possible vendors. I told him I had no interest in selling elsewhere, that I was doing very well right here.”

  “Taintwell has no ‘festivals’, Mr. Marchman.” Hunzinger’s voice had gone ominously low. He rose from the table.

  “I told you, he might’ve said they were considering it.” Feeling increasingly frantic, Will watched the most terrifying man in his world walk to the door. “I paid so little attention, I can’t remember.”

  Hunzinger stood in the doorway and looked outside. He seemed about to say something, probably to his small security contingent. But before he could speak, the partial silhouette of a figure appeared on the steps. It must’ve been one of the Strongarms.

  The approach of evening sapped light from the rectangle of the open door. Will held his breath. He was trapped.

  They’re going to take me….

  Chapter Thirteen

  FOR a change, Marrowbone didn’t appear like a rapid formation of frost on a windowpane. He actually knocked on the front door.

  “What’s on your agenda for this evening?” he asked, flipping the still-lit butt of his cigarette into his mouth and swallowing it.

  “I have to pay someone a visit.”

  “Is it related to your current mission?”

  “Yes.”

  Fanule disengaged a part of his mind from the conversation and wondered if there was anything he’d forgotten to do. No. He simply needed to fire up his OMT. He glanced down at his neat, conservative clothing and felt satisfied it was appropriate for the district he’d be entering. He wondered if he should wear a hat.

  “Who is it you’ll be seeing?” Clancy asked, still standing on the stoop. Moths should’ve been flooding into the house by now, but insects seemed to avoid the vampire as much as most warm-blooded creatures did.

  “A man named Robin Thornwood.” Fanule slid all ten fingers through his hair and shook it out.

  Clancy smiled as he watched. “You know, you’re an incredibly handsome man.”

  Fanule’s “thank you” was perfunctory. He was too preoccupied to appreciate compliments. “By the way, you needn’t come with me.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re hoping to accomplish,” Clancy said, reaching out to straighten Fanule’s collar, “but I’m more than happy to terrorize anyone who consorts with scorpions.”

  One side of Fanule’s mouth tilted up. “What makes you think I intend to terrorize Robin?”

  “Why else would you bother to call on him?”

  “To get some answers. And maybe make a point. For my own satisfaction.”

  Marrowbone shrugged. “However you choose to explain your motives, Fan, they still dovetail quite nicely with mine.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t dine there, Clancy. I don’t want to sink to his level.”

  “You wouldn’t be. And I”—Marrowbone turned up his hands—“am what I am.”

  ROBIN THORNWOOD lived in a drab rowhouse that looked like every other drab rowhouse in the Waxman district of Purinton. Although the cobblestone streets in the area were fairly clean, as befitted the managers, petty bureaucrats, and small-business owners who lived there, Waxman couldn’t escape the soiled canopy that blanketed most of the city. Gaslights blurred through a yellowish haze.

  Fanule rapped sharply with the brass doorknocker as Marrowbone melded with the shadows on one side of the stoop. Robin should be home. He’d always averred quite haughtily that he didn’t visit public houses during the week, as if that nod to temperance made up for his energetic weekend rutting.

  His conventionally pleasing face appeared as the door opened, and immediately took on a slack, sick look.

  “Fan, what are you doing here?”

  “I must talk to you.”

  “You can’t. I mean, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I have a ledger to balance by tomorrow morning. Sorry.” The door began to glide closed.

  Fanule slammed his flattened hand against it, halting its progress. “Why did you look at me as if you’d seen a ghost, Robin?”

  Eyes wide, Thornwood spasmodically shook his head.

  Fanule stepped over the threshold. Robin stepped back. Once in the small foyer, Fanule closed the door at his back.

  “Did you expect me to be dead by now? Instead of some poor, innocent, unfortunate wretch whose only misstep was making an alley his home?”

  On the wo
rd wretch, Fanule gave Robin a hard shove. Robin stumbled backward, twisted to the side, and grasped at the frame of his parlor’s doorway. He couldn’t clutch it firmly enough to prevent his fall, only to break it. Gasping for breath, he landed on one knee, his head hanging.

  “Get up.” Fanule lifted Thornwood by the front panel of his neatly pressed shirt and pushed him against the wall. A painting in a gilt frame rattled above his head.

  “I gave you my body,” Fanule grated, his face just inches from Thornwood’s. “When intimacy is offered and accepted, a contract is born. Not for the people involved to love or even like one another—we cannot will affinities into being—but at least to respect the gift that’s been given.” He moved even closer. Lifting one leg, he massaged Robin’s genitals. With the tip of his tongue, he followed the line of Robin’s jaw. Then, like a passing mist, he touched his lips to the underside.

  Fanule held Thornwood’s head in place and spoke within an inch of his trembling face. “Didn’t my gift please you, Robin?”

  A whimpering moan came from that delicate, shaved throat.

  “Answer me. Didn’t my gift please you?”

  “Y-yes. It did.”

  “I thought so.” Fanule eased back. He feathered touches over Robin’s pale, coppery eyebrows, his short nose, his modest and meticulously trimmed mustache and beard. “Remember when I bound you to that alder in Crooked Wood, and you begged me to touch your stiff prick?”

  Eyes lowered, Robin nodded.

  “So I knelt naked in front of you and brushed my hair against it, and my cheek; my shoulder and armpit and nipple. And if I stopped touching you, even for a few seconds, you begged me to start again. Do you remember?”

  Robin’s answer came out on an exhalation. “Yes.”

  “You emptied your balls on me that day. You anointed half my body with your holy cream.” Fanule paused and stepped back. “And now you’re aiding some withered, cold-blooded mercenary who wants to pump bullets into that body you anointed, my body. You want to destroy the gift I gave you.”