by Tim Waggoner
“That would take too long. I need to find him as soon as possible.”
Candy paused, then he asked, “Is he in danger?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
He nodded again. “And might you also be reluctant to ask the Shadow Watch for help because you and your partner were ordered off your last case?”
I wondered which of my fellow officers hadn’t been able to resist Candy’s sweet, sweet charms.
The Candy Man has a special ability. Once someone – Incubus or human – eats a portion of his body, he can see what they see and hear what they hear, at least for a short time. The more someone eats, the longer the effect lasts. This is why Shadow Watch officers are warned to stay away from Candy. Sanderson isn’t thrilled by the idea of anyone being able to access his officers’ senses, even if only temporarily.
Jinx and I, however, had on occasion found Candy to be a good source of information, not that we let on that we knew how he came by his info. He wasn’t in Deacon Booze’s league, but he was damn close. If anyone who Candy had a link with had seen or heard anything about Jinx – or better yet, had actually seen Jinx – he’d know it.
“I’m surprised you’re asking for my help,” Candy said.
“With the psychic connection you have with your customers–”
He waved a chocolate hand to cut me off. “I mean I’m surprised in this case. You’re Jinx’s Ideator, and you work as partners, day in, day out. As closely bonded as you two are, you should have no trouble locating him yourself.”
I looked at Candy in amazement for a moment, embarrassed to admit I had no idea what he was talking about. My silence must have clued him in, because he said, “You’re not, are you? Bonded. At least not that strongly. That’s too bad. If you were, you’d be able to sense where he was. His presence would be a psychic beacon to you, and vice versa. A bond like that would come in handy in your line of work, I’d think.”
Candy sounded as if he pitied me, which made me feel even more embarrassed, which in turn made me start to get angry. Especially when I recalled how Sanderson had lectured Jinx and me about this same issue.
“Look, are you going to help me or not?” I asked.
“I will. But not because you threatened to tell my secret. I might lose some customers if the truth got out, but not as many as you might think. I am delicious, after all.”
A strong chocolate aroma hit me then, and I felt my mouth water anew. I really needed to start carrying some energy bars around with me, I thought. But the smell dissipated as quickly as it had come, and for the first time I wondered if Candy could control it.
“Do you know why I do this, Audra? Sell bits of myself as treats?” he asked.
“I assume it’s because you make even more money selling the information you acquire.”
Candy laughed, the sound equal parts merriment and sadness. “I provide information as a favor from time to time. To you and to a few others. Don’t ask who. I won’t tell you. But I never charge money for my services. Have I ever asked you for a payment?”
“No, but I figured that was because I’m so intimidating.”
Candy continued as if he hadn’t heard my answer. “I’m old, Audra. Much older than anyone knows. I was strongly bonded with my Ideator, and when he died it wasn’t long before I started fading. I was lonely – and alone. They’re two different things, you know, both just as devastating in their own way. But instead of allowing myself to fade away to nothing, I decided to replace the bond I once had. I couldn’t find a new Ideator, of course. That’s not possible. But I knew what happened when someone ate a piece of me, so I opened up this place. Now I’m bonded, at least temporarily, to dozens of people at a time. The bonds aren’t strong or deep – and to be honest, they aren’t nearly as satisfying as the real thing – but they’re enough to keep me from fading.” He paused before going on. “Enough to keep me from feeling completely alone.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I was overwhelmed with sadness, compassion, and shame. For years, I had known Incubi, worked alongside them, hell, even lived with one, but I realized that I didn’t really understand them.
Candy’s left arm had almost completely regrown by now. As if to test it, he reached up with it and broke off a tiny piece of his earlobe. He then offered the bit of chocolate to me.
My stomach gurgled, but I said, “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“This isn’t a treat. It’s my price for helping you.”
I frowned. I didn’t like where this was going.
“No freebies today, Audra. If you want my help, first you’ll need to eat this. It’s a small piece, and its effect will last only a short time. I want to glimpse the world as seen through your eyes, Audra. That’s my price.”
The thought of eating a piece of a sentient being was disturbing enough. Technically, I suppose it wasn’t cannibalism since I’m not an Incubus, but it felt like it. But it was the thought of the intimacy that such a bond, however temporary, would force upon me that made me sick. Candy wanted to get inside my mind, and he was asking me to not only allow it, but to throw the door wide and invite him in.
“Can you guarantee that you’ll be able to find Jinx?” I asked.
“No. But if you had anyone else to turn to for help, you wouldn’t be here, would you?”
“For a guy with chocolate for brains, you’re too damn smart for your own good, you know that?”
Before I could change my mind, I snatched the chocolate earlobe from his newly formed hand and popped it into my mouth. I have no words to describe the sensation that hit me the instant that chocolate touched my tongue. I don’t think there are words, not in any language. Imagine the strongest stimulant combined with the most powerful narcotic, and that would be a good start. My head swam and my knees buckled, and it took everything I had to keep standing.
No wonder Candy always has a full house, I thought. If a small piece had affected me this strongly, how much more addictive would a full mouthful be? Or a heaping plate? I was surprised that any of Candy’s customers ever left the place. I’d be tempted to withdraw my entire life savings, plunk my ass down on a chair, and keep stuffing my face until I died. It was that good – and that bad.
There wasn’t a clear moment when I felt Candy’s awareness slipping into my mind, but after a time I became aware of a mild pressure in my head, as if I had the beginnings of a sinus headache. It didn’t hurt, but it felt strange and mildly uncomfortable. I looked at Candy, and he looked back at me. He hadn’t gone catatonic while we were linked. Candy could still move, but his awareness was – not split, but doubled. He was still inside his own head, but he was inside mine as well.
The connection didn’t run both ways. I couldn’t see through his eyes or hear through his ears. But I could feel the link between us, a deeper and stronger bond than any I had ever felt with another being before. Including Jinx, who was in a sense my child.
True to Candy’s word, the effect didn’t last long. I felt the pressure in my head ease little by little, until it was gone, and I knew I was alone inside my own skull once more.
Candy let out a long, soft sigh. “So that’s what I look like to you.”
He didn’t elaborate, and I was glad.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said. Chocolate lids slid over his eyes – one Red Hot, one lemon drop – as he began concentrating.
He remained like that for several minutes, and during that time I felt naked and exposed in a way I never had before. This person, this creature, had been inside my mind, and even though I had allowed it, and Candy hadn’t forced his way in, I still felt violated in a way I couldn’t define.
Candy’s trance, or whatever it was, went on so long that I began to fear he wasn’t going to have any luck finding Jinx. But eventually he opened his eyes, smiled, and spoke two words, “Circus Psychosis.”
“How many?” a voice asked me.
The Incubus inside the ticket booth was covered with warts, and I mean covered. There wa
sn’t an inch of his skin that remained unblemished. The warts were large, each at least the size of a quarter, and they had grown so close together that the Incubus’ eyes were sealed shut, as were his nostrils. His mouth remained open enough for him to breathe and speak, but the warts covering his lips made him difficult to understand. I could only see him from the waist up, and since he wasn’t wearing any clothes, that was fine by me.
“One,” I said.
“Ten yoonies.”
I didn’t have any yoonies, but I still had some Earth money on me. I took my wallet from my jacket pocket, opened it, and started to pull out a couple bills, but Wart shook his head.
“Yoonies only. We don’t take Earth money.”
There was a line of customers behind me, and they shuffled their feet and muttered in irritation. The Incubus in line after me let out an exasperated sigh, and I turned to look at her. She was a vegetation-based creature, with thickly intertwined vines for her body, two huge pumpkins for breasts – with protruding stems in place of nipples – and a carved jack-o’-lantern for a head. Slanted triangular eyes and a wide grinning mouth filled with sharp teeth gave her an appropriately sinister appearance. A soft flame burned inside her hollow head, and now it began to glow hotter, indicating her frustration.
“Is there a problem?” I asked sweetly.
“You humans are always a problem,” she said. Her voice was a combination of rustling leaves and moist pumpkin pulp being squished.
I started to reply, but she cut me off.
“Just because some of you can create us, you act as if you’re gods. But you’re nothing of the sort! You’re weaker than we are as a rule, you have no special abilities to speak of, you take forever to heal – assuming you don’t die from your injuries first, that is – and you don’t live very long. Only a handful of decades at most.”
I tried to cut in, but she kept going.
“And as if all that wasn’t enough, you don’t even have the decency to carry our money! You should go back to your own world, stay there, and leave Nod to us!”
A number of the Incubi in line nodded their heads and offered words of support for Madam Pumpkinhead. A couple even applauded. But several looked uncomfortable, and a few slowly eased out of the line and started walking away, as if they’d changed their minds about seeing the circus. They’d no doubt realized that I was a Shadow Watch officer, and they didn’t want any trouble.
I regarded Madam Pumpkinhead for a moment. I considered showing her my badge, but I decided against it. I didn’t want to cause any commotion – at least not yet. If Jinx was being held here, I didn’t want to alert his captors that I was coming. But there was another reason I wanted to avoid a scene. Despite the fact that I really wanted to put my fist through the bitch’s rind, her accusation that humans treated Incubi as inferior struck a chord in me. I like to think of myself as a person who doesn’t harbor any kind of bias toward people who are different than me in terms of race, religion, gender, sexuality, politics, profession, etcetera, etcetera. The truth is I’m only human, and I have my share of prejudices, even if they’re milder and harder to identify than they might have been if I’d been born in an earlier time. But could I honestly say that I considered Incubi as equal to humans – or even in some ways superior?
And what about the Incubi? Humans give “birth” to them on Earth, but then most of them are shuffled off to live in another dimension. And those that are permitted by the Shadow Watch to visit or stay on Earth must conceal their true nature. How did that make them feel? How did it make Jinx feel? It shamed me that it had never occurred to me ask him.
So instead of hitting her or talking tough, I merely said, “I’m sorry.”
It was impossible to read her expression since her carved features couldn’t move, but the glow inside her head softened, and her plant-tendril body relaxed a bit.
“Well, OK, then,” she said, sounding a bit bemused. “How many yoonies do you need?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Ten.”
Madam P reached up with both hands, and with her tendril fingers she took hold of the stem on the top of her head and lifted the lid off. Then with her other hand, she reached inside her head and pulled out a large handful of yoonies. Whatever caused the glow in there, it must not have been literal flame, for her vine fingers were undamaged. Madam P replaced her lid and then gently nudged me aside and stepped up to the ticket booth.
“We’ll take two,” she told Wart.
He didn’t look happy about letting me in, but money was money. He took the yoonies and handed Madam P two tickets. She in turn handed one to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“It was my pleasure, dear. Sorry I got so huffy. My rind has a tendency to go off a bit now and then. Makes me cross.”
Then she slipped a viney arm through mine.
“Shall we?” she asked.
I smiled and accompanied her inside the tent.
The Circus Psychosis was located in the Arcade, the main entertainment district in Newtown. You can find any sort of amusement there, from all the usual diversions to be found on Earth to ones invented by the Incubi, to strange combinations of the two. My favorite is Noddian soccer, where the players are allowed to arm themselves with whatever weapons they choose, and the balls are set to explode at random times. Fun for the whole family.
Circus Psychosis was housed inside a gigantic rainbow-striped tent that covered an entire block. I’d seen the tent before, of course, but I’d never been inside and had barely paid attention to it. I’d been busy with other cases at the time, and given how I feel about clowns, I’m not big on circuses. But now I was here, walking arm in arm with a pumpkin-headed Incubus that only a few moments ago acted like she couldn’t stand my entire species. Life is weird, but life in Nod is ultra-weird.
Wooden bleachers were set up around the circumference of the tent, and they were filled with Incubi and more than a few humans. More people were streaming in from three other entrances beside the one we’d used, and from the looks of things, I guessed the circus was going to have a sold-out performance.
I was even more grateful then for Madam P’s help. Without her, I would’ve had to find another way in and risk alerting Jinx’s captors to my presence. A big crowd meant that I could hide in plain sight. Of course, it also meant a lot of people might get in my way if I had to act. I didn’t have to worry about Incubi getting caught in the crossfire, since they could heal swiftly. But the same wasn’t true for my fellow humans, so weapons or no weapons, I’d have to do my best to be careful when it came time to make my move.
Madam P wanted to sit up high, but I convinced her that it would be more exciting to sit closer to the performers, and we managed to find a couple seats in the third row. Not quite as close as I would’ve liked, but it would do. We sat, and Madam P began telling me about the last time she’d been here and how much fun she’d had, peppering her monologue with the occasional darling and sweetie. I started to think I’d liked her better when she’d been a bitch.
A cacophony of noise filled the tent – circus music blared from speakers set at regular intervals throughout the tent, and everyone in the crowd was talking, shouting, and laughing, creating waves of sound that rose, crested, and dipped, only to rise again. Food and souvenir vendors made their way through the bleachers, calling out their wares and urging people to buy. Peanuts, popcorn, cotton candy, and hot dogs were popular snack items sold, but they had Noddian touches. The peanuts screamed when their shells were broken, and the cotton candy was pink fiberglass insulation wrapped in gleaming barbed wire. The hot dogs were the same as those on Earth, but they’re disgusting in any dimension. The souvenirs ranged from the charming dead-rat-on-a-stick to the unsettling death-scream-in-a-jar. So far, the Circus Psychosis was living up to its name.
The circus had the traditional three rings; the floors inside the rings were covered with fresh sawdust, and there was also rigging set up for trapeze and high-wire acts. While the crowd filed in, a
number of performers were walking around, providing simple entertainments to keep the audience happy while they waited for the show to begin.
A clown – who was not Jinx – juggled a trio of decapitated heads that were reciting soliloquies from Shakespeare, each head speaking a word in turn. A human-sized poodle was making tiny naked humans jump through hoops, and a skeleton artist had slipped off his skin and was tying it into different shapes resembling balloon animals in response to suggestions called out by the crowd.
Madam P commented on each of the performers, punctuating her responses with copious oohs and ahhs, but I ignored her. I slowly swept my eyes around the tent, looking for Jinx. I didn’t see any sign of him, and I was beginning to wonder if the Candy Man had been mistaken – or, worse, had lied to me. I considered leaving my seat and going in search of my partner, when the ringmaster stepped in from behind a flap in the tent and strode to the middle of the center ring.
I could tell he was a ringmaster by his sequin-covered top hat and red swallowtail jacket. But even though he had a human face – thin mustache, Van Dyke beard – the octopus tentacles he had in place of human arms and legs caused him to move in a distinctly alien fashion. His gait was at once smooth and awkward, and I had no trouble imagining him once starring in someone’s nightmares. When he reached the center of the ring, he stopped and raised his arm tentacles into the air to get the audience’s attention. He wore a microphone headset, and when he spoke, his voice issued from the tent’s sound system.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the strangest show off Earth!”
Laughter and applause.
I decided to remain seated for the time being. Once the show was underway, everyone’s attention would be on the performers, allowing me to sneak around more easily. At least, that was my hope.
The ringmaster continued.
“We’ve got chills, we’ve got thrills, but most of all” – his voice lowered to a whisper – “we’ve got madness!”
The tent lights cut off at his cue, plunging the audience into darkness. The crowd cheered, roared, and stamped their feet so hard, I feared the bleachers would collapse. A spotlight came on and shone on the center ring, illuminating a tall, blue-skinned Incubus who wore only black Speedos. He had large black eyes, a bald head, and large ears that tapered to points.
