The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake Book 27)

by David Leadbeater

Drake noted several of Hagi’s men also studying the shadowy array of trucks, vans and other vehicles that the carnival had brought with it. The motors were parked in a haphazard array, several rows deep and wide. One of Hagi’s men started shouting into his radio.

  “Why aren’t they attacking us?” Alicia whispered very loudly.

  Cam shrugged. “Because we’re not attacking them anymore. This ragtag army is pulled from many clans and generally don’t know each other.”

  Drake took a moment to examine Hagi’s motley crew. They wore all manner of clothing from long, dark coats and wide brimmed hats to jeans, T-shirts and expensive sneakers. They were bare-chested, sporting knots of muscle and homemade, faded tattoos. They were bald or long-haired and some had ponytails. They carried bats and hammers, guns and knives, but most of all they flexed their muscles, cracked their knuckles, and punched the air. If Lupei’s clan did appear, Drake thought, this could turn into the biggest fist-fight of all time.

  Sudden light glared from deep inside the parking area. Drake was momentarily blinded and knew exactly what was coming.

  “Down!”

  The team hit the ground as one. A barrage of bullets slammed overhead. Hagi’s men screamed and fell, the projectiles passing through them and beyond, slamming into stalls, rides and trees.

  Drake figured the quickest way to end the fusillade was to return fire, and squeezed off a few rounds. The others did the same. Soon, the exchange of salvos thickened the air, with Drake and his team scrabbling toward any kind of cover they could find.

  Inevitably and intentionally, the noise caught the attention of Hagi’s army. Men ran and inched toward the gunfire, raising weapons of their own and trying to figure out a way of flanking the aggressors.

  Drake fired a full clip on automatic. His bullets destroyed windshields, doors and front fenders. They struck cars and sixteen-wheel trucks, motorbikes and transit vans. Tires exploded, vehicles sank. A sidemirror was hit and smashed off, flying backward with a bullet’s momentum to shatter against the side of a truck.

  Shadowy figures were now visible. Drake saw them ranging left and right, saw the way they moved. Dumitrescu’s soldiers, carrying some heavy firepower. Drake focused a volley on them, taking several down.

  The Hagi army ran, crawled and inched forward, narrowing the gap between them and the trucks, taking casualties but forging on. Those few with headsets were communicating furiously with some form of remote command.

  From around the left and right edges of the parked vehicles, a swarm of men burst into view. They ran hard at the Hagis, guns up and firing, surging forward; and the Hagis rushed to meet them. These were Dumitrescu’s troops and Lupei had sacrificed them first.

  Both the Hagis and the troops took fire, falling, yelling and dying. Drake and his team stayed out of it, conserving their ammo. Dozens if not hundreds of men ran at each other, shooting and screaming, and throwing knives and even rocks they’d found around the parking areas. There was an audible crunch as the enemies came together in a bloody and intensifying clash.

  Drake looked from front to back. “Still no Lupei. These idiots are gonna tear themselves apart. We could leave them to it.”

  Cam glared at him. “Those are Dumitrescu’s soldiers attacking and murdering the Roma. They are killing my people. Men and women that have no agenda but are forced to rip, kill and tear. We must help.”

  “Don’t forget the soldiers are following orders too,” Alicia said from experience. “They are pawns as much as the Roma.”

  “We can’t get to Dumitrescu... yet,” Dahl said. “But we can get to Lupei. And maybe Hagi himself.”

  Cam rolled toward the Swede. “How?”

  Dahl’s eyes were fixed on a row of transit vans. “Right there.”

  The vans were rocking. People were climbing out of the back, jumping to the ground. Cam focused hard. “Stevo,” he said, recognizing his brothers. “Mihai and Nicu.”

  “They are joining the fight,” Mai said.

  “My mother,” Cam said miserably. “And there... Lupei himself.”

  Drake saw them all now, standing at the head of their own army, perhaps a hundred or more strong. They were waiting until Dumitrescu’s men had decimated most of Hagi’s army, because there was no way the soldiers would be able to tell the various Roma clans apart. Lupei and Hagi weren’t big on uniforms.

  “Here they come,” Kenzie said.

  Drake watched as Dumitrescu’s troops continued to whittle down Hagi’s large force; as Hagi’s men finally reached the soldiers and fell among them, hacking and punching; as Lupei and his silent army raced through shadows to join the fight. At their backs, Hagi’s men were still coming, still rushing through the parking area or dragging themselves up from where they’d been temporarily incapacitated by the earlier bomb blasts.

  Drake saw more of what could only be Lupei’s men attacking them now, slipping from surrounding trees and even out of parked cars. The battle raged across the carnival site. Innocent men and women still cowered, tried to hide, or ran aimlessly from danger to danger. The carnival folk backed each other in fighting off the men and women trying to destroy their stands and stalls.

  Drake motioned at the place where Lupei and his army would emerge on to the battlefield. “That’s where we make a difference.”

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  The SPEAR team moved out.

  Fanning left and right, Drake saw the value of an experienced, long-term team as his friends took on various responsibilities without being prompted. Dahl and Kenzie took out several soldiers who’d taken an interest in them, with Hayden and Kinimaka backing them up. Mai ran straight at Lupei with Drake at her side. Alicia, Cam and Shaw focused on Cam’s three brothers.

  There was still a lot of ground between them. Lupei was carrying a powerful handgun, something like a Glock, and was picking off Hagi’s men, shooting several in the back at random. His sons flexed their biceps and produced knives, mowing through opponents like scythes cutting wheat. More of Lupei’s personal army surged around them, sprinting directly at Hagi’s beleaguered army.

  Drake saw Lupei coming closer, a shaven-headed man with broad and muscular shoulders. He wore a webbed belt festooned with magazines for his Glock, and knives for when the bullets ran out. His face was hard, as if it had been carved by an implacable demon and then sent out into the world. His eyes were thin and unreadable, like black flint.

  Drake lined him up in his sights. Good riddance to bad—

  Mai was struck from the side by a running cluster of Lupei’s men. Though she saw them coming, there was nothing the Japanese woman could do to suppress their momentum. They carried her into Drake just as he fired, sending the bullet sky high. Drake hit the ground beside Mai before scrambling to his feet.

  Fists and knives lunged at his face.

  Drake got stuck in.

  *

  Alicia ran with Cam and Shaw, targeting Lupei’s sons.

  The consensus was that if they could take the main players, the resistance and the fight would go out of Lupei’s men. In turn, that would negate Hagi’s army and hopefully put an end to the bloodshed. Of course, if Hagi continued to attack then the SPEAR team would have to deal with him too.

  But, for now, Alicia focused on Mihai, Stevo and Nicu.

  A stream of men ran between them. Alicia kicked out, felling one, then elbowed another. She spun into the surge, punching and kicking men this way and that. Shaw was to her right, lashing out with knives and boots, her ponytail slashing left and right, her black leather jacket spotted with crimson.

  Cam punched people square in the face and the jaw to see them slither unconscious to the ground as if every bone in their bodies had been broken. Alicia had never seen men collapse so quickly into full “lights out.”

  Lupei’s men weren’t pushovers, though. They were lifelong brawlers, men and women that fought every day, that saw fist-fighting as a way of life.

  Alicia elbowed one man to see him take it full in the face and
then, despite an open, bleeding wound, leap on her, knees wrapped around her frame, bearing her to the ground. She headbutted him but he only grinned, baring bloodied teeth. His own fists struck her ribs and kidneys like bricks, sending sharp spikes of pain through her, making her gasp.

  She saw Shaw fall to her knees and be kicked in the face. Shaw slashed the man’s chest open, but he only grunted and came at her harder, using his body to force her onto her back with her knives trapped at her side. The man had a hand free, which he started using liberally to pulverize her face.

  Alicia yelled out as her opponent continued to pummel her lower body. Somehow, she freed her arms and pushed them down onto the back of his neck, forcing his face into her lower stomach, just above her groin, and held him there, smothering him, using every ounce of strength that she had.

  “Some wankers would pay extra for that,” she said, feeling the energy leave his body at the same time his arms went limp.

  Leaving him on the ground, she rolled against the man on top of Shaw, sending him sprawling. Shaw’s face was covered in blood and at least one of her teeth had been knocked out.

  “Don’t worry,” Alicia breathed, dragging her upright. “Drake and the rest forgot about my nose. They’ll forget about your mouth.”

  Shaw spat blood angrily. Both women looked around, warding off more assaults. Cam was nearing his three brothers.

  The heavens opened then, sheets of rain teeming down as if a cloud had burst. The ground churned up, mud covered their boots. Their faces were dripping, their eyes full of water. Alicia and Shaw tramped to Cam’s side.

  “We’re with you,” Shaw said.

  Cam confronted his three brothers. “Stand down,” he said, arms by his side, fists clenched. “Your father lies to you. The carnival is not his first love, and neither are you. Marko Lupei only loves power.”

  Stevo and Nicu were goggling once more at Cam as if he’d beamed down from a spaceship. It was a long moment before anyone spoke.

  “Camden? You’re still interfering. What do you want now?”

  “Is Ruby here too?”

  “I don’t believe it. The dead brother returns once more.”

  “I am not dead. Never was.”

  “You were dead the moment you left the clan. You and our dumb sister. So you come back now. Why? To badmouth our father? Are you with the Hagis?” Stevo was doing all the talking.

  “No! I came to save you. To help you. Pull you away from the stench of lies and violence that surrounds our father. I came to show you another life.”

  Stevo bunched his muscles. “Look around, brother. We’re busy.”

  “We can end this. Stop the killing. Unite the Roma. Save all our people, all the innocents, the good men and women living the only lives they’ve ever known. You’re destroying them.”

  “We’re fighting for them,” Nicu claimed.

  “No,” Cam said. “You’re fighting for evil.”

  “This is for the people. For the Roma. For Oana and Alba, who Hagi took away and enslaved. This is for—”

  “We saved Oana and Alba,” Alicia shouted into their rain-drenched faces. “Whilst you idiots let a murdering thug control you, we saved them from a lifetime of slavery.”

  The three brothers peered at her. “Oana and Alba are here?” Stevo said, missing the point. “Where?”

  Alicia could tell this was going nowhere. You didn’t adjust a lifetime of radicalization in one shouted conversation.

  “Stand down,” Cam said, and Alicia could tell it was his last warning.

  Stevo squared up to him. “Why? What are you gonna do about it, Camden?”

  Alicia struck first, driving a fist into Stevo’s chest. Shaw hit next, attacking Nicu. Cam was left staring Mihai dead in the eyes, hoping to reach at least one brother.

  “Please, Mihai... come over to the side of our people.”

  They were struck by a wave of people then, all fighting, all staggering from side to side. Cam was momentarily parted from Mihai, and Alicia from Stevo. Shaw was bundled to the ground alongside Nicu. But they came together again, throwing people aside and stepping up as the bright rain teemed and pelted down.

  Alicia struck Stevo in the temple. Shaw kicked Nicu in the shins. Cam jabbed twice at Mihai. Above them there was a devastating crack of thunder and a lightning bolt that split the skies from east to west, throwing the field, the warring clans, and the streaming rain into temporary stark relief. Figures surged in the mud, embattled, sometimes unable to tell friend from foe but forced to continue fighting by men that had taken leave of their minds.

  Alicia dodged as Stevo jabbed and thrust. She caught a blow by raising her elbow, ducked, and drove hard punches into his ribs. Stevo sidestepped away like a boxer, moving from foot to foot. Alicia feinted with a left and let loose with a right but Stevo read it and ducked, moving in and headbutting her under the chin. Alicia felt her body lifted and then she was landing hard on her spine, the breath smashed out of her. Steve landed on top of her.

  Fuck, I’ve had more men on top of me today than in the last two years.

  The errant thought came and went, plucked away by pain as Stevo unleashed a flurry of punches down at her chest and face. Alicia covered up and rolled from side to side, evading the punches as best she could. When Stevo missed, his right fist punching down into the mud, Alicia thrust out an arm, pivoted him to her right and threw him off her.

  Cam drove hard at Mihai, bloodying his lips almost immediately. His youngest brother danced sideways, ducking and diving, looking for a point of weakness.

  “You used to be the best in the country,” Mihai snarled. “We’ll see how soft you have become.”

  Cam let him attack, taking blows to the ribs. When Mihai was in close, Cam grabbed him under the chest, locked him in, and then uppercut everything from his skull to his sternum. Cam didn’t let up, firing the blows in every second, one after another, until Mihai gasped. When Mihai went limp, Cam threw him backwards, seeing his brother stagger and flail before falling to his knees.

  Cam advanced. “I take no pleasure in this, brother.” He raised a fist to finish Mihai off.

  But Mihai exploded up from the lower position, striking Cam in the stomach and propelling him backward. Mihai smashed punches into Cam’s midriff like a piledriver. Cam let his brother strike like that until the furious momentum passed.

  And then Mihai was spent.

  Cam used an elbow then two fists on Mihai’s face. The lad went down, gasping, blood washing from two wounds, streaking and flowing down his face. Cam kicked Mihai in the stomach before throwing him into the churned-up mud, yelling in vain at his brother, telling him to see what was happening around them.

  Shaw punished Nicu at first, until Cam’s middle brother found his feet and came harder at the Native American. Shaw had sheathed her knives, thinking it wiser for the moment. Droves of fighting men and women staggered and stumbled all around her, grunting and grasping, thrusting hammers and sawn-off spades and even garden shears at each other. It was an impenetrable melee, a product of greed, power and negligence.

  If there were no Roma left, Alicia thought, what would Lupei, Dumitrescu and their masters do then?

  But more still came. Hagi’s men surged forward and Lupei’s men met them hard. Dumitrescu’s soldiers fell and fought, caught in the middle of it all.

  “Lupei!” the shout rose up over the sound of intense battle. A throat-cracking, raw, furious shout of pure agony.

  It came from Hagi himself. “Lupei! You killed my daughter! I will cut off your fucking head for that. Right here, right now... your fucking head!”

  Lupei answered the call from the crowd of fighters. “I am ready, old man! Come and get me!”

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  Drake, Dahl and the others were swept away from Lupei and Alicia in the surge of battle, back toward the center of the carnival.

  Caught amid hundreds of people, Drake stumbled along with them, unable to bring his skills fully to bear, reluctant
to use his guns unless someone was clearly trying to rip his eyes out, trying to remain close to his teammates. Mai felled foe after foe, leaving a twitching wake, but even the ex-ninja was starting to tire.

  “Too many of them,” she told Drake when they briefly came together.

  “We need to start affecting this battle,” Dahl said over the comms.

  He was right. Dragging along, involved with the main battle was an exercise in futility. They couldn’t save everyone. In the next moment they stumbled into the twin line of stalls and stands that made up the carnival’s main thoroughfare, with the trio of sizeable tents beyond, and saw the assembled folk that were the lifeblood of this fair, the true Roma, standing holding makeshift weapons and prepared to fight back to save their livelihoods.

  “There,” Drake said. “We’re needed there.”

  They ran and they rallied, surrounding the Roma and turning outward. Men came at them from all angles. The Roma regarded them angrily at first but then, when the SPEAR team offered their backs to them and faced the onslaught, they mellowed and fell in alongside. The surge of battle wasn’t directed purposely at the carnival folk and their livelihoods, it just swelled and surged back and forth, carrying the fight along with it.

  Drake was driven backward, falling into one of the tents. The flaps were wide open, but he tripped over a guy rope, tumbling inside. A flood of fighters stumbled in with him. Drake rolled to his feet, sensing a great space at his back and glanced around.

  Could be worse...

  They’d landed head over heels in the burlesque tent. The dancers and their assistants were hiding in here, over by the raised stage and among the plastic seats. Drake turned back to the fight as Dahl stepped to his side.

  “Typical,” the Swede said. “The first place you visit is full of strippers.”

  “Welcome to Eastern Europe.” Drake grinned. “And you weren’t exactly far behind me.”

  Together, they stopped three men racing past them. Mai and Kenzie then leapt inside, hair plastered to their faces, blowing droplets of rain from their lips. “Good idea,” the Japanese woman said.