“Then why are you waiting?” Blue moved close, watching her face. “Why are you holding back? Why bother saving my life when you should have killed me?”
“Perhaps I am a good woman.” Her smile changed, becoming softer, more sensual. “Perhaps I think you are a good man.”
Blue narrowed his eyes. “I think you’re a liar.”
“Lies are nothing but stories we tell to survive. But I think you know all about that, Mr. Perrineau. I think you might be an expert.”
She stood directly in front of him. He was not stupid enough to try to take her gun; he trusted her reflexes more than he trusted his. Instead, Blue remained very still, waiting to see what she would do—and it was not until the last moment that he truly understood.
The woman leaned into his body, pressing herself against him with the gun digging into his chest, and Blue held his breath as she rose on her toes, free hand tracing a path along his ribs. She kissed his mouth, slow and easy.
Blue did not kiss her back. She was warm and dangerous and beautiful, but he felt nothing but profound unease when she touched him. All around, music—drums and flutes and now violins—and he glimpsed Iris below, dancing across the stage with incredible power and grace, her feet barely touching the ground. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her to be the one in front of him, touching his body.
The woman broke off the kiss and followed his gaze. She studied Iris for a long moment, then said, “She is beautiful, isn’t she? Everything a woman should be and so rarely is.”
Fear cut through Blue, but only for a moment; he studied the woman, and though he could not see much of her face, he felt nothing of a threat in her body, in the line of her mouth. Just something tired, almost wistful.
“You talk like you know her,” he said carefully.
“I talk like a woman who was once just like her.”
Again, that odd melancholy. Blue looked at her. Really stared, wishing he could see her eyes.
The woman smiled. “Look hard, look deep, Mr. Perrineau. You will never know me. Never.”
“Does anyone know you?” he asked softly.
Her smile turned brittle. She jabbed the gun against his chest.
“Remember what I said. Leave. Or else I will kill you.”
Blue shook his head. “Why are you doing this? Why work for a man like Santoso?”
“Who says I am working only for Santoso?” She sidled backward, deeper into shadow. Blue began to follow, but she shook her head, still pointing her gun.
“Remember,” she said again, and then she left through the heavy door beside the catwalk. Blue went after her, but she was too fast—by the time he reached the hall she was completely gone, without a trace. Behind him, through the wall, he heard thunderous applause.
Blue got out his cell phone and called Roland.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Iris did not return to her dressing room after the show was over. She tried to, but the memory of that siren shape-shifter call still lingered, and the pain it caused made her walk in the opposite direction. It was a gift, her mother had once told her, that shape-shifters could feel when another was near. A gift in this modern age when their kind were so few.
Iris had felt the call before, but only with her mother. This time, she knew it was her imagination. There were no other shape-shifters flitting about—she had resigned herself long ago to the idea that she just might be one of the last—and she refused to believe her mother might have come so near without revealing herself.
Still, it made Iris uneasy. She fled to the loading bay where the incongruous presence of the silk pavilion fluttered like a ruby amidst concrete and trucks, men in hardhats unloading construction materials; or restaurant assistants hauling giant boxes of newly delivered fruits and vegetables.
The circus had constructed a small warm-up space in the loading bay, well out of the way of most traffic but still within clear sight of all the Miracle’s employees, who occasionally gathered to watch the tumblers bounce and twirl upon the massive trampoline stationed less than twenty feet from the artfully hidden holding pen. The theatre itself was very close, the backstage doors only steps away from what had become the circus’s unofficial green room. One of the Miracle’s handymen had set up a small television with a live feed of the stage; anyone not performing could sit on the edge of the trampoline to watch the show.
Thus, everyone knew about Daniel’s performance. Iris, being the act after his, had watched it just offstage. She could still smell the smoke and gasoline, would never forget the look on his face as he ran from the roaring audience. His eyes had been filled with pure joy.
The crew was still talking about it when she slipped into the pavilion, pulling the silk drapes behind her so that she was encased in a red cocoon of perfect privacy. Giant pillows lay strewn inside and around the holding pen, and the Kitaro music she had tuned earlier still played on repeat.
The cats were lounging inside their holding pen: relaxed, eyes half-closed, giant paws twitching. Iris wished she could let them out, but this was not Montana or some quiet remote town. The circus would understand a tiger roaming about, but not anyone else.
Iris heard shouts; Pete, calling out for Daniel. Iris rolled off her pillows, crawling to the edge of the pavilion curtain. Cheek pressed to the ground, she pulled up the fabric just enough to peer out. She saw Daniel jog across the loading bay to greet the old man, who leaned against the trampoline with one hand on his belly. His face was red, mouth turned down into a very deep frown.
“I hope you’re happy,” Pete said.
“Well, I was,” Daniel said. “What’s wrong? The audience loved that act.”
“Of course they loved it. You almost killed yourself. Death, danger, and mayhem are what make the masses happy. Unfortunately, hotel management does not share their sentiments. They are furious, Danny. So furious, they are officially canceling tonight’s show and deducting the ticket costs from our salaries.”
Ka-thunk Iris could have heard a pin drop. Everything outside the pavilion went silent.
“Pete,” Daniel said weakly. “Pete, I just wanted—”
“To do something great. Memorable. Death defying.” The old man sighed, rubbing his face. “Son, there is a reason everyone goes through me when they are preparing a new act. There is a reason I have to approve these things. And yes, if we were still on the road it would be another matter entirely. But we aren’t, kid, and the rules are different here. There are codes and laws and men in suits, and they don’t like surprises. At all. Surprises mean lawsuits and injuries and bad press.” Pete reached up and placed his hands on Daniel’s shoulders. “Son, you set yourself on fire. You almost set the stage on fire. You practically screamed fire in a room full of people, many of whom were children. One man called 911 on his cell phone. An elderly woman complained of chest pains. Which, I want to emphasize, you should not feel guilty about. It is, however, the reason the hotel is making us call it quits for the night. They want to get everything sorted out with the fire marshal. And the lawyers.”
Daniel closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Pete.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “Best night of your life, one of the finest acts I’ve ever seen, and I have to rain all over your parade. But that’s the way it is in this business. Now, maybe you’ll get lucky. Management might come back singing your praises as the best thing since Houdini. If so, everyone’s going to be patting you on the back, telling you that you’re some genius. Fantastic. But if that does happen, don’t you forget the flip side. Don’t you dare forget the price we all could have paid for that arrogance. Because success is great, kid, but only as great as the person handling it.”
Iris glimpsed movement to the left of the men: Blue. He stared at them like he had heard every word, which was likely—everyone in the loading bay had stopped work to listen. This was big news, the kind that would get Daniel treated like shit until the future cleared. Screw the famous bond of the circus family; this was the gig of a lifetime for almost
everyone on the crew, including herself, and Daniel had just cost them money—and maybe their jobs.
Pete waved Blue over. “Funny thing, you two. A little bird told me you both had a scuffle earlier today. Not with each other, but some strangers who wandered into the camp. Men with guns?” His voice dropped to a whisper, but that was no bar to Iris’s ears. Shock willied down her spine, along with a good dose of fear.
The tension on Danny’s face intensified. “We took care of it.”
“And the men left,” Blue said, his expression also closed, hard.
“They left,” Pete agreed, “but someone else has been asking questions. About Daniel. This isn’t the first time, either. I got wind of it a couple weeks ago, but didn’t take it seriously. Now I do. And I want you to tell me why you’re so special that some private goons want to rough you up.”
Neither Blue nor Daniel said a word, though the two men shared a long measuring look that was becoming typical of all their encounters. Iris was not quite sure what it meant when men stared at each other, unblinking, for such long periods of time—although it was beginning to seem a tad more significant than the typical pissing contest.
Pete blew out his breath. “Fine. Be like this. But if I hear of another incident, you’re both out, and I won’t be counting any losses.” He waited a moment, staring, then made a shooing motion with his hands. “Danny, go. Keep your head down. Blue, stay. We need to talk.”
Daniel looked like he wanted to protest—he certainly sucked in enough air to do so—but Pete stood his ground, chin tucked, eyes hard, and the young man lost his nerve. Or maybe shame kicked in. Either way, Iris breathed her own sigh of relief when he turned on his heel and walked away. His shoulders and spine were a little bent—certainly charred as all hell—but it was nothing a little determination could not cure. If he still had enough fire in his gut to keep on fighting.
Iris glanced back at Blue and Pete. To her shock she found Blue staring at her, head tilted, expression inscrutable. Iris, cheeks hot, let the curtain fall and scooted backward into the shadowed safety of the pavilion. The warmth of his gaze haunted her, as did the memory of his hands, his voice, his Did I hurt you?—and she wanted to pull aside the curtain; she wanted to walk out there and stand at his side and touch him.
Petro rumbled; all the cats watched her with wise eyes, and she felt their contentment inside her head, the warmth, and she thought about fleeing—not to Blue, but into the pen. She needed a hug.
A moment later, though, she heard a deep cough outside the pavilion; not random, most definitely an announcement. She caught a whiff of cigar smoke and flowers. Of money smells, rich man smells.
Iris stood just as the curtain was pushed aside. A man entered. He held a bouquet of purple irises. He was short, narrow, and impeccably dressed. Brown skin, black hair, with Asian features that had enough of something else in them to keep him from being completely ordinary. The man smiled when he saw Iris—smiled like he was used to being complimented on his very white teeth.
But he did not speak, and neither did Iris. She could not. All the hairs on her arms were standing on end, and in her head, the only thing she could hear was a scream. She had some experience with fans—years’ worth—and she knew the signs, the differences between the ones who were true admirers, and those who wanted something—usually a quick fuck. Either way, there was always a smell, an energy, a way they looked her in the eye—or did not look at her at all.
The man in front of her was easy to read. He smelled like blood and sex. Bad, like the edge of murder.
His smile widened. “You look strong, up close. I like that.”
“You won’t like it when I kick you in the balls,” Iris said. “I don’t know who you are, but you don’t belong here. Get out. Now.”
He laughed and tossed the bouquet at her feet. Petals broke, scattered. Con and Boudicca sat up; Petro and Lila began pacing against the bars, lashing their tails, lips curled back over their teeth. Iris took a step toward them; the man did not move, but he watched her, his eyes undressing her body like he owned it: flesh and blood, thigh and breast. His intensity went beyond invasive; Iris imagined knives sharpening in his gaze, in the dart of his tongue against his thin lips.
The man pulled something small from his breast pocket: a notecard. He flung it at Iris and she caught it out of the air, recognizing the soft paper the moment she touched it. Dread spilled low into her gut.
My love, she read, and stopped.
The man smiled—again, that awful smile. “I am an artist, too, you know. I have an eye for beautiful things. Like you.”
“I don’t consider myself a thing.”
“Ah. Fine. A woman, then. You are a woman. Does that make you happy now? Yes? I want to make you happy, Iris.” He looked at Con and the others. “Do you see that paper you are holding? I made it for you. I made it with my own two hands. Very special, very rare. I think you might appreciate the source material.”
There was something about his voice, the way he looked at the cats, that made her skin want to shrivel right off her bones. Iris stroked the paper, found it still soft, but this time instead of letting her fingers do the work she raised it to her nose and inhaled deeply. She smelled flesh.
The paper fluttered to the ground; dark lights swam at the corners of her vision. Petro snarled, raking the ground with his claws, while the other cats put back their ears, slinking low. She felt their concern echo in her head and thought, No, quiet. Walk quiet now.
Walk quiet around danger, her mother had said once upon a time. Walk careful.
Iris curled her fingers; a claw broke through against her palm. The sleeping leopard inside her body began to wake, unfurling like a bud in a seed, pushing, pushing, pushing into a rage. Iris kept the beast in check, sweating with the effort.
The man’s smile turned knowing. “Layak,” he whispered. “Layak, I know what you are.”
She did not know what that meant, but a chill shuddered through her, a sense of even worse mojo, and she stepped toward the man, intent on beating the living crap out of him. He did not move away, but his eyes turned so mean Iris found herself faltering.
“You are mine,” he whispered. “You are already mine.”
“I’ll kill you first,” she told him. “I’ll cut your throat with my bare hands.”
“And I will thank you for the pain,” he said, gliding backward, slipping past the curtain, disappearing from sight. Iris stared and stared at the spot he had just left, heart pounding so hard she felt lightheaded with it, breathless. The cats pushed up against the bars, moaning, but Iris could not comfort them. All she could look at was the note on the floor—and try to imagine what life had been sacrificed for it.
He can’t hurt you, she tried to reassure herself. But you can hurt him.
Or at least gets the cops breathing down his ass. Iris shoving aside the pavilion curtains and raced into the loading bay. The man was gone.
Yet his scent—the sex, the blood—still lingered. Iris let it wash over her and felt her teeth sharpen, the leopard stir. She bit her tongue, tasted her own blood, and the rush that filled her rustled warm and deep inside her stomach. There was movement behind her, coming around from the other side of the pavilion: Blue and Pete, still talking. She glanced over her shoulder just as they appeared—caught Blue’s eyes, watched them widen—but before he could say a word she began to run.
She did not worry about what people would say, how they would react; for once, drawing attention to herself did not matter. The man somewhere in front of her, the man getting away, needed to be stopped. Stopped cold, stopped dead.
The loading bay was large, cavernous, the air filled with musty mechanical scents that made the man’s trail stand out like blood on snow, blood on skin, blood on pale paper made of flesh.
Iris heard her name—Blue, running after her—but she ignored him, following the scent through the double bay doors. She squinted at the sun, sucking in a quick breath as a hot wave of air rolled over h
er body, scorching her skin. But there—there—she glimpsed the man a short distance away, climbing into the backseat of a slick black Mercedes. The windows were tinted, the driver unseen. No license plate. A black van was parked behind him.
Iris shouted. The man turned to look at her, flashed white teeth, and yelled back a word that was definitely not English—and, she realized, not for her. The van doors slid open. Four men in dark clothing poured out. Big men. Big muscle.
But the one she wanted—Mr. Crazy—slid into the backseat of his Mercedes, which pulled away before his door fully closed. The engine roared, and within seconds the car disappeared around a lush stand of palm trees.
Leaving her alone with the goon squad. Thick faces, red cheeks, brown hair, sunglasses. Broad chests, and arms so thick they almost couldn’t bend properly.
“Ma’am,” said one of them, in a surprisingly high voice that made him sound like Baby Huey on steroids. “You need to come with us.”
“Like hell,” she said, backing away. The men followed. They looked bored, unconcerned for their safety. Iris did not feel sorry for them. Again, she heard her name called, louder this time—Blue, finally catching up—but she could not afford to glance back at him because the men shared a look … and lunged.
Iris sprang back on light feet, bouncing on her toes as she slipped and danced just out of reach of their hands. Her fingernails lengthened subtly, and when Baby Huey got too close she lashed out and caught him across his forehead, knocking his sunglasses askew. Blood ran into his eyes; he shouted, clutching his face. All that boredom disappeared; the other men hesitated, startled. One of them reached under his jacket. Iris glimpsed dark metal.
And then Blue was there and his fists were a blur, cracking like rock against bone as he threw himself against the men surrounding Iris. His face was terrible to look at—his eyes black with rage—and he was relentless, quiet, deadly—breathtaking—as he spun on his heel like a dancer, fighting as if his life depended on it, fighting for her.
But that man was still reaching for his gun, and Iris darted around Blue’s back, claws again lengthening in a glimmer of gold as she struck him hard in the gut, cutting fat and muscle, ripping him deep enough to cripple. He stared at her, pure astonishment passing over his face, and it was easy to take his gun, to break his wrist for it, and he shouted in pain, shouted even more when she kicked out the back of his knee, driving him hard into the ground.
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