Ringmaster

by Aurelia T. Evans

  “Part of me is thinking this one is too easy, so it’s probably not what it looks like. At the same time, it seems like the perfect way for a demon to hide in plain sight,” Victor said. “Could go either way. Demon?”

  “That’s one.”

  He was better at the game than she’d thought he would be. Then again, someone who analyzed statistics for a living would be pretty good at analyzing any given data, even something as arcane as supernatural circus folk.

  He correctly assessed that snake charmer Lady Sasha, Ciàran and one of the three tumbling clowns were demons. He missed strongman Lord Mikhail, Moss, and the other two clowns. She’d already given him the Ringmaster and Bell, so they didn’t count—nor did Kitty and Victor happen upon them along Oddity Row. Bell was working the fortune teller tent, and the Ringmaster stayed away from everyone until it was time for the performance.

  Victor also mistook contortionist Valorie, the Cyclops, Carlo and the mermaid Melanie for demons. But he got conjoined twins Joanne and Jane, sword swallower Misha, Troy, Christina, Arnie, Rotting Man Marcus and Sandra right as humans.

  Where he got most of it wrong once he knew they were human, though, was figuring out who was there voluntarily and who had been cursed in. Of those, he’d only gotten Troy right as voluntary and the twins, Christina and Arnie right as cursed.

  After the game, he was far more subdued. It was one thing to talk about people—human beings—getting trapped in the spider web of Arcanium and another to see the effects.

  Kitty had him linger in front of Sandra, the Human Skeleton, who wore a smile that wasn’t creepy at all. The ability to sing the whole Dem Bones song while pointing at her body easily alarmed most people, but Kitty had been around Sandra long enough to know how much happier Arcanium had made her. She and Kitty had bonded through the years over congenital diseases unexplained by science. There were consumptive disorders and hypertrichosis, of course. That’s what the doctors had put in their medical records, along with words like idiopathic, atypical and unspecified. Then again, Kitty’s disorder was never going to kill her unless she happened to get her hair tangled around her neck in her sleep. Unlikely.

  Victor had been shocked to hear that Sandra was voluntary rather than cursed.

  “An unknown wasting disease,” Kitty had murmured back. “She came here because she’d heard from someone who knew a fellow who suggested someone had found a cure for what ailed them here. Bell stopped the progression of the disease and took away the worst of the symptoms, so now she gets to be a weirdo without heart murmurs, muscle weakness and fatigue. Eventually she’ll realize that she can leave without her disease, Bell loves her so much. She still has two wishes left. All she needs is to say the word.”

  Victor stared at her. Again, he didn’t ask. And again, she didn’t answer.

  She took his hand and led him around the big top to the animal compounds. Not the most romantic of smells, elephants and camels, but she’d gotten used to it after all this time. It was as typical an Arcanium smell as canvas, sawdust and ale.

  “The elephants are human,” Kitty said, nodding to them as they passed. “The lion and tiger are human as well, but we don’t let them out during the day. The camels are just camels, though. Come on.”

  She let him in the back entrance of the big top. Backstage was dark. The lion and tiger restlessly roamed their cages, but from his angle, Victor wouldn’t be able to see.

  Kitty grabbed the front of his shirt in her fists and pulled him back with her until they were shrouded in shadow by the catwalk ladder.

  “Even after all that, you still want to kiss me, don’t you?” Kitty said.

  “I stopped keeping score, but I think I lost,” Victor said.

  “You lost. I didn’t,” she said. “Do you know why, when you’re overcome by the darkness of the place, you still want a kiss? And…other things.” She canted her hips forward. He wasn’t fully erect, but he wasn’t soft either.

  “Because you’re wearing a really hot corset?” Victor asked. “And it’s easier to be aroused than to admit I’m kind of terrified of this place. And you.”

  “You’re turned on and I’m turned on because Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail aren’t just ordinary demons, with their snake charming and strength. They’re incubus and succubus.”

  Victor jerked away, but not far enough to slip from her hands.

  “They can’t turn off their magic all the way. So, like chain smokers, they leave their secondhand magic everywhere. And when the circus is open, they deliberately turn it up. I’m always hot for you when we meet outside the circus because I have a week or two’s worth of their magic built up in my system. It’s why you don’t care right now about your moral dilemma and the life-changing question you’re going to have to answer. Because you spent all that time in front of Lady Sasha’s tent and got a headful of sex magic working on you. It’s even more powerful at night. You’ll see.”

  “Do I want to?” Victor asked, stepping back into her arms.

  The fact he’d asked in that way meant that even though he questioned her integrity and found her slightly scary, he still trusted her.

  It meant that those nights they spent together hadn’t really been about one thing and one thing only.

  Not that she had a problem with that one thing, since she’d been using him for sex too. It was just difficult to form meaningful attachments when she never stayed in one place and would rather not mix work with too much pleasure. She left that to the rest of the cast, shagging like bunnies and finding love in a hopeless place. Kitty was okay indulging, but she’d rather not latch on out of desperation. It seemed to be a bad reason to latch.

  This time, when Kitty pulled him into a kiss, he didn’t retreat. Apparently, he didn’t mind a thrill of fear to go along with his arousal at all.

  They made out like a couple of teenagers, or at least how Kitty had always imagined teenagers made out ever since she’d been one herself—although in retrospect, she didn’t think most teenage boys had it in them to take things slow and savor the sensations without trying to move on to the next base. It helped that Victor had gone through all the bases by now. It was much easier to enjoy the earlier bases when one was familiar with them.

  It also helped that the succubus and incubus magic plucked at Kitty’s and Victor’s respective lust strings like harpists rather than electric guitarists. The afternoon and early evening were all about priming the customers’ anticipation. The delicious, delicious simmer of arousal and intrigue.

  Victor eased her back against the thick canvas, almost as solid as a wall, blocking her in with his arms. He hummed with pleasure when she arched her back, bringing their hips together again and pressing her corset-enhanced breasts against his chest.

  “We have outdoor sex and semi-public sex all the time, but are we really going to be doing this here, now?” Victor asked.

  “I don’t see a problem with that. It’s not like we’re going to get in trouble,” Kitty said between kisses to his neck to weaken his scruples. “This is the kind of reaction they want. As long as we’re not humping in the middle of the crowd, they’re not going to care.”

  Besides, Kitty didn’t get a lot of sex inside Arcanium, which was where the lust itches usually begged to be scratched anyway. Getting it scratched outside Arcanium didn’t repair nearly the same amount of damage as doing it inside the circus.

  Which begged the question why Kitty resisted all efforts to make her play the in-house field more often. What it usually came down to was that most of her favorites were already taken, but that didn’t explain everything. After all, most of her favorites didn’t object to diversifying their divestment portfolio—especially in an environment like this, where it was important to cling to the good wherever they could, however they could, and damn the consequences.

  Kitty thought the clink of a belt buckle against an open zipper was one of the sexiest sounds in the world. Victor was this close to pulling the top of the corset down for her breasts to
pop free, but it was going to be a tight squeeze. Nothing wrong with making a man work for his feast.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Kitty didn’t know she could still make that shrieking sound—turned out when a person acted like a teenager, she sometimes sounded like one too. Victor stumbled back, quickly zipping his jeans, wincing when it caught on his thankfully clothed erection.

  She laughed, holding her forehead as the adrenaline rush coursed through her. Victor glared at her as only a man caught with his pants down could glare.

  “God, you scared me to death,” Kitty said. “Victor, this is the Ringmaster. Ringmaster, this is Victor. I’m giving him a tour.”

  “A tour inside your dress?” the Ringmaster asked. His face was like something that had been carved to appear human.

  “Among other things,” Kitty said. “He’s potential cast, not a trespasser. Talk to Bell. He’ll explain it to you.”

  The Ringmaster cast his gaze to Victor with black eyes like obsidian stone. He was darkly handsome with wavy black hair, moustache and goatee, saturnine skin, broad shoulders and barrel chest—an imposing, intimidating figure standing head and shoulders above an average man and swathed in full ringmaster regalia, red velvet, golden dross and black leather in spite of the heat of summer.

  When he showed no emotion as he did now, his intensity became a disquieting glower, the burning cold in his eyes untempered by a gleam of humor or wicked delight.

  Victor froze in the midst of buckling his belt, paralyzed under the crushing weight of it, a paradoxical combination of utter indifference and fierce antagonism strong enough to cripple even a stable personality such as Victor’s.

  Kitty stepped in front of Victor, interrupting the worst of the Ringmaster’s influence. After sixteen years in Arcanium, she was far more used to it than Victor. The Ringmaster could glare all he wanted. It didn’t mean he could do anything unless Bell unhooked him from his leash.

  “What a pity,” the Ringmaster said, returning his attention to Kitty once again. He ignored Victor now as though he wasn’t there at all. “I shall speak to Bell.”

  Unfathomable and inscrutable as always, the Ringmaster turned to leave.

  He stopped at the exit and looked over his shoulder at Kitty.

  “You shouldn’t be here. You have responsibilities.”

  Then he left.

  Kitty stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders against the tension. The usual interaction a person had with the Ringmaster could make them feel like they’d been having a discussion with someone part gorgon.

  “Demon?” Victor said, finally buckling his belt all the way.

  “Gee, how could you tell?” Kitty said with a laugh like whistling in the dark.

  “Even if you hadn’t already told me, I’d be able to tell. Jesus. It’s like it got hotter and colder in here. Is he always that…unpleasant?”

  Kitty adjusted her breasts inside her corset and pulled the whole contraption up for good measure. “Usually,” she replied lightly. “Sorry about the interruption. I’d ask if you wanted to start again, but…”

  “But I feel like we were just slapped on the wrist by Satan. Demon interruptions are a bit of a buzzkill,” Victor finished for her.

  “Some of the time,” Kitty amended.

  “I don’t want to know,” he said, shaking his head and threatening to cover his ears. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Want to see the carousel? It’s the last part of the game until tonight’s performance.”

  “Arcanium’s the one with the creepy carousel, isn’t it? I have a vague recollection of that.”

  “Yep,” Kitty said. “The only clue is that there are three of our people there, and only one is easy to find. Good luck.”

  * * * *

  He got the carousel engineer, Caroline, right as well as one of the carousel mounts shaped like a man in horseplay-like gear, but he got the other mount wrong by assuming because he looked like a man being tormented like the first one, he must be human. Caroline waved to Victor when he got on with Kitty. Then she raised an eyebrow, but Kitty shook her head.

  Caroline was usually the last to get the gossip, out of the way from the main hustle and bustle of the circus as she was. Also, she wasn’t as involved a participant in the circus proper, and she didn’t often attend the performances with her two carousel mounts once they turned back into men instead of wood. Regardless of how Kitty felt about them, she was pretty sure that if she were twenty-one, energetic and flanked by two hot men eager to please, Kitty wouldn’t get a lot of information from the rumor mill either.

  Still, until the ink was dry on the proverbial contract, Kitty wasn’t telling.

  After the carousel ride, Kitty returned to her exhibition tent to serve the rest of her Oddity Row time for the day. At six-thirty, she ducked into the back of her tent to get ready for her portion of the performance preparation.

  Once she’d helped Joanne and Jane, Maya, Christina and Valorie with their hair and makeup, she pulled Maya and Valorie aside to deputize them. The two women were anxious for more information, but Kitty shut down any effort to find out more about the mystery man. They knew better than anyone in Arcanium that a woman was entitled to some privacy.

  Then she went to the big top and waited for the warm, magnified resonance of the Ringmaster’s baritone to reverberate through the ground under her sandals.

  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the circus Arcanium.”

  Kitty entered and climbed up the bleachers to join Victor. He’d promised to save her a seat close to the entrance so she wouldn’t have to squint through the spotlight and the darkness to find him.

  “If there are any boys and girls in the audience, now is the time to shuffle them away from the degenerate wickedness unashamedly on display tonight. We will give you a few minutes’ grace,” the Ringmaster announced. “Also, it’s worth noting that our clowns haven’t been fed for several weeks, and they are particularly hungry for child meat tonight.”

  The audience laughed.

  Victor checked with Kitty. Kitty wasn’t laughing.

  “Very well. All youngsters stay at their own risk. Let us begin with the darlings of Oddity Row—our seductive snake charmer, the exceptionally fine Lady Sasha, and our brash, brawny strongman, the great Lord Mikhail.”

  Gone was the Ringmaster who Victor had witnessed backstage. Here in the ring and illuminated by the spotlight, the Ringmaster came alive. The glower of his chiseled, attractive, intense face turned animated and engaging with life and seemingly genuine pleasure.

  He swept his arm out toward the red curtain, his black, braided leather whip swinging from his elbow. Black-clad golems rolled in a giant box filled to the brim with giant snakes. The audience members in the first and second rows leaned back, as though that would keep them safe.

  Lady Sasha did have a collection of venomous snakes, but she only managed them a handful at a time. The constrictors in the box would be fed and lazy and uninclined to attack anyone in the audience even if Lady Sasha didn’t have ironclad control over them.

  Just because Kitty knew she wasn’t in danger didn’t mean she wasn’t interested. She and Lady Sasha had overlapping Arcanium tasks, with Lady Sasha working the leather and Kitty the rest of the costumes, so she and the succubus sometimes crossed paths. But Kitty didn’t often get to see Lady Sasha in her element. She only felt it after the magic of the performance had reached backstage.

  Kitty threaded her fingers through Victor’s, grinning.

  The Ringmaster stepped back as the lighting changed. An arabesque filled the air, and the four sides of the boxes began to open. Victor suddenly clenched her hand.

  The clump of snakes lost their shape, spreading out to the sides. Lady Sasha emerged from the serpents in a sinuous sway that initially had her confused for a serpent herself. From the center of the box, a metal pole telescoped up, and Lady Sasha slid up with it.

  She locked it in place with her toes then jumped into a spi
n as the serpents slithered away from her—except for the albino ball python that had curled firmly around her neck and seemed mellow as anything, as though he wasn’t going in dizzying circles, its muscular body caressed by Lady Sasha’s dark, loose curls.

  Other than the snake, the only thing she wore was a thin leather bikini of her own construct. Decency laws be damned, it did nothing to hide what it covered as she brought her hips against the pole in an unapologetic grind.

  “Holy shit,” Victor breathed. “That’s…ah…”

  Kitty guided their intertwined fingers to the front of his pants. He gradually let her go and covered her hand over his erection, sudden, inexorable and prominent in his jeans.

  Lady Sasha’s pole dance was more or less routine, but there was nothing dull about her, and just because it wasn’t original didn’t mean it wasn’t skilled. Lady Sasha was an amazing acrobat and tumbler in her own right, although those skills weren’t what people tended to remember. Mostly, the men tended to remember how unbelievable and regrettable it was that her all-natural breasts never fell out of her top.

  The moment Lord Mikhail stormed through the curtain was the moment it stopped being routine. He deftly stepped between the snakes to approach Lady Sasha. She curled her body around the pole just in time for him to remove it from the box and lift the pole balanced in his palms.

  If Lady Sasha was what every heterosexual male wanted in his bed, Lord Mikhail was what any man wanted to be, his extensively but not overextensively muscled body ripped and cut and gleaming, like something on the cover of a fitness magazine. Every muscle was defined, but not at the expense of his masculine beauty. He wore little more than Lady Sasha, as secure in showing every enticing inch of his manhood—in more ways than one—as Lady Sasha every inch of her femininity.