by Karin Cox
“And your daughter…”
“What about her? If you’d shut up for a minute and let me finish, you might find out.” Kettle leaned back against the spokes. His breathing was labored. “Look at me, not even half a man, though I’m grateful I’ve still got the parts that count for that title at all, I suppose. Look at Trudie, more woman than any man can handle. Those fecking twins—pair of idiots. The boss’d take one head off, if it didn’t deprive him of an income. All of us doing Gandler’s bidding, but we don’t see a glint of that coin do we? But that girl, that sweet girl…” Kettle paused and mopped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.
I presumed he meant Danette, or maybe his daughter.
“He did that to my Kira, you know,” Kettle continued. “Cut her throat. And he’s threatened the same to Giselle. Sweet little Giselle. Poor wee lass never asked to be brought into this world looking like she does. Lord knows I feel the shame of it, but dwarf or no’, she’s mine. Cooped up in Gandler’s tent helping him with those terrible tasks. And all this time. All this time…” Kettle’s voice was choked with sobs. “I’ve never been a big man, Feathers—”
“Amedeo, Kettle.”
“Well, I’ve never been a big man, Amedeo, and I know all can see that, but to be a coward—that is another kind of small.” He put his head in his hands. “And look what it’s done to them. My Kira, she were a bonnie lass, she were. Brave and big, strong as a sailor and with the ink and the mouth to match, but how I loved her. And she loved me. Bore me two fine babes, she did, small as Giselle might be. Bore them bravely, but me…”
The man was rambling now, sobbing his words so much that spittle followed them from his mouth.
“Calm, Kettle,” I tried to soothe him. “Bravery and brashness are stablemates. You are alive—”
“Yes. And my Kira is dead. And I should of done this years ago when she was still here to see it.”
“Done what?”
“Killed that evil bastard!” Kettle spat the words out.
“Kettle,” I warned, “calm now. What is behind all this? Have you seen Sabine? Theron?”
“Seen them? I freed ’em. Would have freed you too, had Gandler not punished me.” He began to dab at his eyes with his sleeve again. “Yes, I know how hated I was. Karl and Kettle. David and Goliath. The midget and the monstrosity. That’s what they all thought. But I am not like Karl. I knew which side my bread was buttered on. Small man like myself, you either wield the stick or you prostrate yourself and prepare to be beat with it. But with a man like Gandler, the stick is not the problem. The problem, Feathers, is the carrot. And what sweet carrots he had to make me wield that stick for him.”
He was rambling again and sobbing openly now. I wondered what he had taken to make him even this coherent through his pain.
“Kettle, come now, man. Tell me before we are interrupted. Where is Sabine? Why has she brought Joslyn here?”
“Sabine, yes. There are dungeons, you see. Secret passageways.” Kettle grimaced with the pain of staying upright. “Beneath the city. Kira and I met there, you know. Many years ago. She was a sailor’s daughter. Provins always had a thriving black market. Dealt mostly in contraband down there in the cellars. Women. And rum. And—”
“Kettle! For the love of all things holy!”
“I’m getting to it.” He groaned again and licked his lips. “God’s whiskers, man, you ever taken laudanum?”
I shook my head.
Kettle flinched. “Under the Grange aux Dime, the secret passages. Kira and I used to tryst there. After what Gandler did to Trudie, tricking her up like a whore, and then that girl… the things Giselle told me, how he tortured her. Cut out her womb, he did. And Sabine, what he did to her. All a reminder of what he might do to my Giselle if I didn’t find the courage to stop him. But how could I, a man of my stature? Sabine was my best hope. When I led her out to the pavilion, I told her not to struggle, that I’d go easy on her if she’d help me and mine escape. Help put an end to this.” He snuffled again. “All’s she had do was pretend to fight, and I’d set her free after the show. Told her where to hide beneath the Grange aux Dime. Told her to come back for us. Kill Gandler.”
“And Theron?”
Kettle stopped and stared at me almost blankly, as if he had forgotten what we were talking about. Then, after a few seconds, he said, “Lord, but if you’re not an impatient creature.” He scratched his head and wiped at another smear of blood on his bandage. “I told Theron nothing. Never did trust the man myself. But then again, I’m not a dog person.” Kettle laughed and then pulled himself together.
“Sabine must have given him a signal.”
“Yes. But it’s you I need, Feathers. You or someone like you. Someone to match Karl’s strength. Gandler has Karl with him day and night.”
“Kettle, I cannot.”
“What? Not even with a belly full of that poor girl’s blood? Not even with Joslyn’s help?”
An icy chill ran down my spine. “How did she come to be here? She should not be here.” It was all I could do to keep my voice at a whisper.
“Don’t scowl at me. She was Sabine’s doing. Sabine sought her out. Said Joslyn was the only preternatural being she knew she could count on to come to your aid, ’ceptin’ herself. What is she, Feathers, a former lover?”
“Amedeo,” I corrected him. “And no!” My denial came too forcefully.
Kettle trembled and tried to wriggle his deformed body back from the wagon a little.
“A former child,” I whispered.
Kettle guffawed. “Well, we’re all former children, aren’t we? Regardless, with her help and Sabine’s, and Lee and Theron, we can defeat Gandler.”
I rattled the bars. “Then get me out of here.”
“That, I cannot do.” Kettle spread his hands before him. “Gandler has revoked my right to your key, and to mine own legs. Lee had to carry me here, left me under the wagon so I wouldn’t be seen.” His voice turned bitter. “And where was Sabine then? Where was Theron when Gandler was sawing off my legs? You are lucky, Feathers, to have so many care for you, and yet you would send Joslyn away.”
My sigh was of sheer exasperation. “Where is Sabine now? I need to see her, to talk to her.”
“Beneath the city. We are laying plans, Feathers. Joslyn is playing her part.”
“And these plans, where I do I fit in them? When shall I break free of these damnable bars?” I kicked one angrily. Shook them with all my might so that the entire wagon trembled and threatened to roll.
Kettle’s words rattled through his teeth as he said, “Shhh. Joslyn had seduced the old man. Every night she retires to his tent. Soon, the plan will play out. He will trust her enough to send Karl away, and she will kill him, drain him dry.”
“Ridiculous!” I spat. “Gandler knows what she is. How could he not? He has been hunting her kind his entire life. And when he is sure, he will do to her what he did to Danette. What he did to you!” I gestured to Kettle’s ruined legs. “She must leave this place. Leave it at once. You must promise me she will not go to his tent tonight.” I crashed into the bars again, and despite myself, boomed, “Don’t toy with me, Dwarf! She must not do this! Tell Sabine, too. Flee! Leave this accursed place. I will not have them do this for me.”
“So selfish for an angel.” Kettle’s tone soured. “Do you think you are the only freak in this show who deserves his freedom? Do you think he won’t torture my Giselle as easily as your Joslyn or your precious Sabine, whose teeth and claws grow back each night? Do you think Trudie or Seamus and Sinbad not worthy of living their lives? No, Sabine shall be my saving grace, even if you are too proud to let her be yours, Feathers. All woman she may be to you, Cruxim, but she has the heart of a lioness. I will not deny her this chance to pounce. She is waiting for it. She owes it to me. The lioness will have her kill.”
Two nights later, Karl came for me. It was long after witching hour, and even the owls were stilled. Lee had long since curled up on his cloak to
nap at the base of the wagon. I had heard nothing from Kettle, Sabine, or Joslyn. Had all been lost?
“Feathers, get up!” Karl towered over the wagon for a moment and then bent down to prod a javelin in through the bars.
I sniffed. “I’m nocturnal.”
“I don’t care what you are.” He propped the javelin against the wagon. “Get up. I got a job for you.” As Karl slid back the bronze bolt to unfasten the door of my cage, I reached out and snatched the javelin, drawing it in through the bars and then stabbing it out at Karl’s unprotected belly.
He gave a bray of pain and then sprang open the door, and one hairy fist smashed me in the face. His aim was off, but he was quick, and the force of it drove me back against the bars. With the other hand, he wrenched the javelin back and flung it away onto the grass. His wrist, wide as a small cannon and as strong as steel, clutched mine, and he jerked me toward him. “Give me your other hand.”
“Where’s Kettle?”
“Shhh!” He squeezed my wrist and I felt the bones shift and begin to crack like half-dry kindling thrown on a fire. “Your hand, or I’ll smash your pretty head so hard into these bars you’ll break your otherworldly neck.”
“Try it.”
Karl’s nostrils twitched and the ripple of a sneer tugged at his lip. “Your hand, Feathers,” he said, squeezing again until I thought my wrist might snap.
Remembering Kettle’s words, I gave him my other hand, watching as he tied them together with a length of thick rope.
“Now walk!” He jerked the rope, and I stumbled forward.
The grass was wet with dew, and a reluctant moon scythed low in the sky. Long shadows moved with us toward the far end of the row of covered wagons. Under a yew tree stood Gandler’s tent of dark silk, candlelight silhouetting the figures inside.
Karl flung back the tent flap to reveal Joslyn standing over Gandler. Her dress was torn to the navel on one side, and one of Gandler’s hands cupped her right breast. It was as perfect as I remembered, and I quickly turned away.
“He comes.” Gandler’s grin was skeletal. He looked different somehow; even more than usual, his face radiated evil.
The old man was dying, I realized. How many ghouls were waiting to tend on him in hell? He sat upon a bed made of hide stretched over a wooden frame.
“I told you.” Joslyn gently pushed at his chest, easing him back down. “Soon, the Cruxim will be dead, and you and I will be immortal. What rulers of the underworld we will be. But you must have something to drink when you are newly made.” The firelight made her features angular, wolfish. It suited her. She had never been more beautiful.
“And the Sphinx,” Gandler wheezed. “I want her too. If I can’t find her anchorstone before I die, I will nightly keep her pretty head on a pole and feed her bitch’s body to the pigs in the marketplace.”
“You will have her, too,” Joslyn soothed. “The lioness. I promise. Justice, strength, beauty and immortality all be yours this night, my Lord.”
What act was this?
“You are certain that he is a Cruxim and that this will work? He was not listed in the book. Why should I believe a Vampire would know how to kill a Cruxim?” Gandler pointed one arthritic finger at the incunabulum, which sat on a wooden butcher’s block to Joslyn’s right, next to a rough wooden cot. A motion from the butcher’s block drew my eye and a muffled squeal made it clear that the bound bundle that sat atop it was not a cheese or a package of goods but Kettle, trussed up like a Christmas ham.
“You are right. The Cruxim was not in the book. An oversight?”
I knew Joslyn’s question was directed at me. I had given the book to her all those years ago, after all.
“You know how long I have searched for him,” she soothed Gandler. “How long I have studied him. Trust me!” Joslyn turned to Kettle. “Now, now, this won’t hurt a bit.”
Gandler’s clawed hand clenched her breast. “Not as much as I will hurt you if this fails,” he warned Joslyn. “It will work perfectly, or it won’t be Kettle’s life I take first.” Grabbing the rosy bud of her nipple, he twisted it cruelly.
Joslyn gasped, but covered it with a laugh.
What farce was this? She had not yet looked at me. And Kettle? Had she forsaken us both?
“It will work,” she said. “He may be stronger than us, able to move about in daylight, his senses more keenly attuned. But now… we have learned his secrets. Mortal blood is poison to him. The very thing that sustains me means death to him.”
“Joslyn!” I struggled to free myself from Karl’s grasp. “Joslyn!” I yelled. “What have you done to me?”
Still she did not look at me. Her voice came strong and sour. “Karl, bind him.”
With a great jolt, Karl swung me around onto the stretcher.
The air thumped out of me, and my wrists smarted. Blood flowed from my crucifixion wounds like stigmata, but I managed to croak out, “No!” and in a fit of rage, I pounded his brawny chest with both hands, all the while screaming.
From the look on the man’s face, the paleness of his brow, I could tell my visage scared him, but he pushed me down on the contraption as if I were a child, tying my legs first. Then he stretched both arms out to the corners and fastened them with rope, double knotted and tight enough to score my flesh.
All the while, I gnashed my teeth, hissed, and writhed, resisting until he drew forth a handkerchief and made to gag me with it.
“Let him be, Karl. A gag is not necessary,” Joslyn said.
“Let me hear his anguish,” Gandler agreed. I could tell it excited him. Such was his tyranny that torture and public shame were his only excitements.
Still Joslyn did not look at me. She strode to the butcher’s block and carefully took up something off it. Squinting into the light, she inspected what appeared to be a hollow glass tube. A syringe, I identified. “Soon this will be all be over, Ame.” Her tone was gentle. “Do you remember, my angel, that night in the ruined castle?”
She turned to the side, the arm holding the implement obscured, and finally glanced over at me. Was it wistfulness or the sting of wounded pride that I detected in her profile?
“How could I forget the worst day of my life?” I spat.
Her beautiful face twisted for an instant. Then her expression calmed and her eyes became cold blue jewels in the steely helm of her face. “And what a long life you have lived,” she said gaily. “But of course you remember. That night we both discovered that things were not as they seemed. Yet life still has not taught you that lesson properly: that men are easily deceived. That things are not always what they seem. It is a charming quality. Trust.” She stared at me intently.
“Once, when I was a boy, I found a nest of starlings,” I told her. “I warmed them daily with my own hands, but when the eggs hatched none but one survived. It was a cuckoo, I later learned. But I loved it as if I had laid the egg myself.”
“A charming analogy.” Her eyes flashed. “A reminder that beasts might betray as easily as humans, perhaps.”
What did she mean by that? Had Sabine forsaken me too? Or had Joslyn promised Gandler Sabine’s head on a pike? What treachery was this, or what game?
“Joslyn, I tire. Your quarrel is centuries old, and your enemy lies helpless here before you,” Gandler snapped. “Give me immortality before infirmity overtakes me.” He coughed. Joslyn plucked the handkerchief from Karl’s hand and held it to his lips. Speckles of blood quickly colored it.
“Very well. Kettle, your arm.” Joslyn moved to the butcher’s block and bent low over the dwarf. Taking up a small knife in her left hand, she leaned across the dwarf’s wriggling, grotesque body to slash the ties that bound his right arm. Then she leant further still, and I saw the brief gleam of glass.
Kettle made muffled protests through the gag, and the stumps of his missing legs squirmed as if to kick. It sickened me. Then he was still, his chest rising and falling as he stared at me imploringly. I strained against my bonds, but it was no use.
“She was,” I answered coldly. “November the 12th, 1538, Joslyn was born to it. And she has taken it ever since. She has dabbled in blood and danced in it and traded in it, and you are a fool, old man, to give her yours. A tyrant and a fool.”
“I will give her your blood, too, Cruxim!” Gandler spat.
Joslyn smiled, but her eyes did not. “He remembers my birthday! How sweet of him.”
“Inject him,” Gandler cried. “And he will remember no more.”
“Before we do this. You must tell us where you keep the keys. Your charges will starve to death should something happen, and Karl has served you admirably.” She patted Gandler’s hand.
“What need?” Gandler slumped back on the pillow, his veined, shaking hand seeking her breast again, but she shook him off.
“I will tell you after,” he said.
“But, my Lord, you are an old man. To bestow immortal life is a long, tiring process, and one not without deprivations for one so frail. If something should happen to you.”
I felt Karl’s body stiffen. “Tell her, Gandler!”
“Yes, tell us. You would not let an old lady starve to death, my Lord,” Joslyn insisted.
“He would not,” Karl boomed, and a blob of his spittle landed on my face. “Have I not served you well, Master?”
Gandler’s sneering laughter threw more blood into the handkerchief. “If I tell you now, Karl, you might kill me while I sleep, before I grow into my full strength. What idiot do you take me for? No, I’ll tell you after.”
“Very well, then,” Joslyn cooed. She moved to Gandler’s bed and stroked his face, pushing it to face the silken wall, revealing his wrinkled throat. “I shall take you now. Take you first, my Lord.”
“Silence!” Gandler hissed, and his arm clutched hers. “While he is still alive? The Cruxim who might destroy me and you both? You will do no such thing. I will see him die first. Only then is my immortality assured.”
Joslyn bent her head to inspect the syringe again. “Master, these things are never assured. You are an old man, and once drained you will require my blood and then the blood of another to feed upon. A newborn Vampire should ideally drink little at first. Kettle will be just a snack, his blood enough to tide you over until I can bring you the wolfman.”
