Rain, finally. Which would mean flash floods and misery, wet boots and cold hanging out on rooftops, steaming mornings and dripping against every surface. It would also mean old-fashioned hot chocolate, Saul’s signature hash browns, and chili.
I pushed the thought away.
There were only two or three shufflers outside the ticket booth. The same Trader was on duty, her rhinestones sending back a vicious glitter, sweat-sheen greasing her pale skin as she kept as far as she could in the shade. I didn’t pause, just strode straight past and jumped the turnstile. She gave a high piercing cry, but I paid no attention.
During the day, the Cirque did look shabby. Holes in signs, tawdry glitter, most of the booths deserted. The murmuring of Helletöng spilled under the surface, plucking at the visible world with flabby fingers. Dust rose in uneasy curls, and the calliope belched, missed a beat, caught itself, and went on.
Where is everyone?
I was cold, despite it being in the high nineties under the sun’s assault. The alien scents of the Cirque swallowed me, teased at the inside of my skull. It was a few degrees cooler inside the Cirque’s borders, but not enough to be a relief. Just enough to pull out some humidity and make every surface cloying and sweaty.
I heard a low wet chuckle and spun, steelshod heel grinding in dirt. My coat flared like a toreador’s cape, the pockets weighted down.
Nothing but the shadow-dogs, crowding close. One slid a smoky paw out into the fall of sunlight and snatched it back, an angular curl of dust rising and dissipating on a breeze I didn’t feel.
Something is very wrong here.
Another eerie cry went up, somewhere else in the Cirque. A thin, chill knife ran through my vitals.
They boiled out of the shadows, the dogs smoking with violet fumes, the hellbreed cringing and flinching, and the Traders hissing as they closed on me. The sun was suddenly my best ally, and my hand flashed for my whip just before the first one reached me.
Chapter Twenty-four
Adrenaline spiked through me, the taste of a new copper penny laid against my palate. The dogs clustered, hissing and smoking in the flat white glare of sunlight. They bled gushing gray smoke, their unskin bubbling. One crouched and sprang, hitting a Trader with a bony crunch. The Trader—long, skinny, walnut skin clustered with tufts of hair—screamed and went down, bleeding bright red tainted with black.
I’d already killed two ’breed and three Traders. The bodies lay twisted, hellbreed flesh stinking and simmering with thin black ichor running from its rents and breaks. The Trader bodies were jerking and twisting, contagion eating at the tissues, foulness simmering. My breath puffed a vapor-cloud as if it was subzero instead of scorching, and the silver in my hair rattled and buzzed.
The dogs pressed close, seeming not to notice the roasting on their surfaces. Blisters popped and oozed, and little black specks crawled over them.
It was a serious what the fuck moment, even for me.
The Cirque performers pulled back. Sharp glittering teeth, body paint, tawdry shimmers from rhinestones and glass paste. The skinny plague-dealer I’d seen at the entrance to the bigtop crouched in front of the dogs, his knees obscenely splayed under burlap breeches. His antique top hat was stove in, and his eyes glittered madly, dripping hellfire.
Daylight scored each flaw in their beauty, burned it deep, and put the twisting on display. The Traders writhed, caught between the desire to fling themselves at me and the snarling of the hounds.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I tracked the front line of twisted faces, turning in a complete circle, one gun out, the whip jangling in the dust. Do you suppose it’s my cologne?
The scar blazed with sudden acid fire, pulling on every nerve in my right arm, and every single humanoid form circling me, Trader or ’breed, fell face-first.
He picked his way through them, a mincing step and a tight-drawn mouth. The air peaked behind him in two turbulent whirls, and the breeze turned clotted, full of spoiled honey and dry sand. The whites of his eyes ran with trails and vein-traceries of indigo, his white-blond hair was standing up in soft spikes, and Perry looked pissed.
The shadow-dogs whined and cringed, the blisters on their hides smoking furiously.
I straightened, leveled the gun. “That’s close enough.” My ribs heaved with deep hard breaths.
“Oh, not nearly.” His teeth glimmered, sharp and perfect white. Two more mincing steps, his polished wingtips picking delicately between tangled arms and legs. “Here is better.” One more. “Or here.”
The hammer clicked back as I put more pressure on the trigger. “Come on, hellspawn. Test my patience.” I fucking dare you. It was an effort not to add the last four words.
“Now, now.” But he stayed where he was. “It seems I did well, in insuring your life.” A graceful sketch of a motion indicated the dogs. The ’breed and Traders whined, digging themselves into the dirt.
The last time I’d seen Perry in sunlight he’d looked almost transparent, and extraordinarily unhappy. Right now he just looked furious, his eyebrows drawn together and dust swirling into two high peaked points behind him. A ripple passed through all of them, and I had the sudden, not-unwelcome thought that if I could just keep all of them in the sunlight long enough, they might all implode like vampires in bad B movies and save me a lot of trouble.
Sunlight is deadly to a lot of things, but it looked merely uncomfortable to Perry. Just my luck. “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. What the fuck is going on here?”
He tilted his head to the side. A ripple ran under the surface of his skin, a quick blemish gone as soon as the seeming reasserted itself. “Oh, my dear. Didn’t you receive my messages?”
“I’ve been a bit busy chasing down whoever has such a hard-on for the Cirque performers since I last talked to you.” But a sinking sensation thudded into my stomach, and I was suddenly not very happy about what he might say next.
There were any number of things that could make the Cirque performers angry or stupid enough to attack me. Perry didn’t let me linger in suspense, though.
“You mean you haven’t heard?” His face twisted up in a facsimile of dismay. Then he went and said the most horrible thing he could have at that point. “My darling Kiss. The hostage was attacked again, and lies near death.”
Oh, shit. I braced myself. “I’ll get to that in a minute.” And here I thought they were pissed because I didn’t pay for a ticket. “What about Moragh?”
“She is dead, eaten by the same monster. What more can concern you about her?” False interest brightened his blue eyes. The rippling under his skin increased, like a pond rippling once a stone’s thrown in.
I gathered myself. All right, Jill. Play this one very carefully. “I should take a look at whatever’s left of her body, Pericles. And if you’re a really good little hellspawn I’ll tell you who killed her.”
I swear to God, he looked disappointed. Perry eyed me for a long few moments, his fingers dangling at his sides, the dogs whining and a low rumble of Helletöng rising like steam from the ’breed plastered to the dusty ground. The Traders twitched in ways no human body should as his will passed over them, a tightening of corruption my blue eye could see all too well.
“Are there likely to be more deaths?” He cocked his head, buttery sunlight turning cold and cringing when it touched his pale hair and his linen-clad shoulders. The dogs growled, a rising note of unhappiness.
Four or five different things slid together in my head all at once. “Of course there are. Unless you get off your hellbreed ass and start helping me control the situation instead of trying to play it like a harmonica. It would be very upsetting to be second fiddle to the Ringmaster in my town, wouldn’t it?” Even temporarily.
There. Not bad for a toss of the dice. I stared right at the bridge of his hellbreed nose, the naked scar on my arm running with soft wet fire, and wondered if I was going to have to kill them all. Or at least, take as many of them with me as possible.
&n
bsp; That’s the trick to staring down an unblinking hellbreed—just like scaring the shit out of a human being. Focus on the nose and your gaze grows piercing, a lot of their little glamours and fiddles don’t work, and any move they make is generally telegraphed. Peripheral vision is a lot better at picking up that sort of twitchy almost-movement; that’s what it’s for.
Stare or not, though, even I might have some trouble with the entire Cirque and Perry on my ass.
The first consideration was that Perry needed a reason to be on my side—and no reason to let the Cirque run wild to gain some leverage on me. The second consideration was that if he was here, he wasn’t watching the hostage.
The third was that I needed him if I was going to hold off the Cirque. I did not want to let them run riot through my city until someone else got a handle on them. Leon down south in Ridgefield or Anya over in the mountains had their own problems; this one was mine.
Last of all, I had to figure out what Perry knew and what side of the fence he was playing. As usual.
“You know what is causing this?” Did Perry sound, of all things, tentative?
Wonders never ceased.
“I haven’t just been sitting on my fucking thumbs, Perry.” I kept the gun steady, sharp hurtful gleams twinkling off the barrel. The sunlight was still so cold my shoulders were tight as bridge cables, and my head hurt. My eyes were dry and full of brambles. Come on. Can we just have one time without a huge fucking production?
No, of course we couldn’t. These were hellbreed, for Christ’s sake. Nothing was ever simple or easy. It was all a game, and you constantly had to stay a few jumps ahead.
Perry weighed me for a long moment. The dogs slunk back, smoking and bubbling. Their crystal eyes were tinted red now, veined through with cracks of magma. They vanished into the shadows, and the chill lessened a little. The smells of the Cirque didn’t break, but the spoiled-honey-and-flies stink lessened.
The ’breed and Traders still writhed and jerked around us, as if a bomb had hit and we were the only unwounded. The scar sawed away at the nerves in my arm, Perry’s attention moving slow and jelly-cold over me. I wished I’d thought to scoop up a fresh leather wristcuff to cover the goddamn thing.
“Then tell me, my dearest one.” His tone was a numb-razor kindness. “Tell me who is responsible for this. I will kill him, and we will all be happy.”
I almost laughed again, caught the sound before it could reach my throat.
Ha. Nice try. “No, Perry. I’m not telling you a goddamn thing. We’re playing this my way.” Because if you got your claws into this, the next thing I knew I’d be yanked into going to the Monde again every month. And I’m sure you have something special planned for me. Not this time. I lowered the gun, my arm creaking with the urge to shoot him in the head and start killing again.
It would be bad in the long term, but oh, the instant gratification was tempting.
Tension ticked tighter and tighter between us, a humming line. I kept staring at the bridge of his nose, breathing softly. My pulse was a steady river.
He finally hissed, a long steam-escaping sound of dissatisfaction. But my bluff held. “Very well. I warn you, though…”
Leather creaked as the gun slid back into its holster. I flipped the whip once, the flechettes jangling. “Save the threats, Pericles. I need to see the fortuneteller’s body—or whatever’s left of it. And you need to be keeping both baby blues on that goddamn hostage. If he dies, you’re the first hellbreed I’m killing.”
As threats went, it wasn’t a bad one. Especially considering I meant every word.
Chapter Twenty-five
The tent was hung with red velvet, cheap tin spangles, and a huge ugly stink. Black liquid was splashed on every surface, including the cracked slivers of a crystal ball on a small circular table draped with purple sateen. Fine gritty dust puffed every time the breeze plucked at the tent’s edges, and the slice of hot daylight from the pulled-aside front flap didn’t do much to dispel the gloom.
I had an unsettling notion that this hellbreed had snarled at me, on my first visit to the Cirque. But not enough of her was left to be sure.
I was still cold. Perry crowded behind me until I stepped away, not liking the faint touch of his breath on my hair. The ruby at my throat spat a single bloody spark, and silver in my hair shifted and buzzed, warning him off. “Why aren’t you watching the hostage?”
“Oh, I like it much better here with you.” His usual tone, bland and interested, with just the faintest sarcastic weight to the words.
“Go, Perry. Have them bring me a bottle of Barbancourt rum and some cornmeal.”
“You came unprepared?” Mock-surprise, now. He skipped nimbly aside as I turned, avoiding both the sword of daylight through the flap and a bubbling streak of decaying hellbreed tissue. Fine white dust curled up, cringed away from the shine of his shoes.
“I didn’t have time to stop at a botanica. You gonna stand here running your fucking mouth, or are you going to do what I tell you?”
“Where’s your little kitty, my dear? Home lapping a bowl of cream?” His eyes glowed bright blue, the threading of indigo in his whites pulsing in time to some heartbeat too slow to be human.
“Saul isn’t your concern, Perry.” I was too tired to put much fuck-you into it. “Your concern right now is keeping that hostage breathing long enough for me to put an end to this.”
“And afterward?”
Afterward you can go fuck yourself again, if it will reach. I folded my arms. “We’ll deal with after, after. Hurry up.”
“I think we should come to an agreement.”
“You’re about ten seconds away from me blowing another hole in your head. What you think doesn’t matter.”
His eyes glowed. A small flicker between his parted lips was his wet cherry-red tongue, gleaming in the dimness. “Not even if I’m the one keeping you alive? The performers here are restive, and the Ringmaster is recovering from a nasty bout of green smoke and cockroaches. Even Traders are so fragile.”
Even you, he probably meant.
I am not a Trader. I’m a hunter. Don’t forget that difference, Perry. “Five seconds.” I stared at the air over his head. “And counting.”
He sighed, spread his hands… and ducked out into the sunlight again, the shiver rippling through his linen suit as well as his skin as the sun, that great enemy of all darkness, touched him.
I hoped it hurt. I hoped every fucking second he spent out in the daylight hurt him.
A straight-backed wooden chair lay flung on the floor, soaked in rotting hellbreed ichor. There was something odd—a long hank of dead-black hair, tangled up in the muck. A few moments more of examination proved it to be a wig, with a kerchief tangled in it. The kerchief had once been red, and was now rotting as the acid ate at it. The wig’s fake hair was stronger stuff, bubbling slightly as it was… digested.
“Ugh.” I glanced up. She was probably at the table when it started.
Greasy antique playing cards scattered across the table. Five of spades, ace of spades, queen of spades, all spackled with steaming liquid rot and covered in teensy roach tracks. The crystal-ball shards vibrated slightly, and something lay tangled under the knife-sharp splinters. Even the base of twisted dull metal the crystal ball must have rested on was torn up, sharp jagged edges still quivering with distress.
The violence of this attack was far and away the worst. It looked like the hellbreed had literally exploded in chunks. Even with all the sacrifice Zamba had performed at her house—the killing of her closest followers—this was superlative.
Which meant Mama Zamba must’ve had some link to Moragh the fortuneteller. Something physical, the last piece of the puzzle.
Come on. Something has to be here. I was about to start tearing the tent apart when a round silvery glimmer caught my eye.
I crouched, the balls of my feet slipping slightly in greasy, bubbling gunk. Each piece of silver I wore quivered with blue light, blessing reacting wi
th contamination.
“Bingo,” I whispered. I shook a piece of fabric out of my pocket—a red bandanna, 51 colors like Gilberto’s, left over from the last big case. I unknotted it, folded it over, and grabbed.
The pocket watch dangled, gunk dripping off it. Steam curled away from its steel curve. Not silver, and not gold, but still antique. “Blessed Maria.” The words were numb on my lips, but the hellbreed ichor cringed, turning inert and dripping free. “Watch over us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
Belief behind words neutralizes evil, one of the oldest tricks in the book.
I popped the case free. The watch had stopped at 11:59, and there was no way of knowing, but I would bet it was P.M. A plain face, with the Greek letter Omega right under the 12. The crystal wasn’t cracked, and engraved on the outer edge of the front casing were three worn-down letters.
SRG. Samuel Gregory. I wondered what the “R” stood for.
There wasn’t much about this case that I could feel good about. But I felt good about this, even with my coat hanging in hellbreed muck and my heart breaking inside my ribs.
“Gotcha,” I said softly. “Gotcha, you bitch.”
I closed the watch up and stowed it in my pocket. Stood, my knees creaking, and surveyed the rest of the tent. A shadow fell across the flap and I whirled, hand to a gun.
It was the stuttering barker, Troy. His face twisted up, hard red flush high on his cheekbones. His mouth was a thin line, and his hair was mussed.
He held a bottle of Barbancourt rum. “H-h-h-here.” The single syllable strangled itself on the way out of his mouth. “I-it w-was H-H-Helene’s.”
“Well, it’s going to help catch her killer.” I took the bottle, and he dug in his pocket. Came up with a much-wrinkled paper bag. I pointed. It seemed easier than making him talk. “Cornmeal?”
He contented himself with a nod and handed it over. “A-are y-you r-really g-g-g-going to—”
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