by Jen Ponce
“We aren’t here for a performance,” I said.
He looked down his nose at me.
“We are looking for guides to find a particular group of Theleoni who have a Wing.” Jasper’s voice sound sure and strong, no indication of his earlier fear.
“My friend, we aren’t in the business of guiding folk through the Anwar. We perform.” His eyes fell on Nex as my friend revealed himself. I wasn’t sure how he did it but Nex could be inconspicuous when he needed. “What is that?”
“I am Nex. Devany is my mistress. We speak the truth of the future.”
“Ah.” The man’s smile widened though I don’t think it got any more genuine. Dollar signs were practically cha-chinging behind his pupils. “Would you be willing to showcase your talents while you were with us?”
“Only if the main goal is to find the Theleoni group and not to piddle diddle all over showing off,” I said. His look gave me the creeps, the look of a man who thinks women were good for only a few things and those things were carefully decided by him.
“You won’t find anyone else willing to lead you through the Anwar. These fools are afraid of the place.” He gestured toward the town and the flickering lights beyond the camp.
“And for good reason,” a man said from behind him. “Our plans are to travel straight on through to Galleia anyway, aren’t they?” His voice held a mixture of sly and ornery that made me smile. “‘Straight through the Anwar,’ you said. ‘We’ll find them and show them who rules the wilds.’”
“Shut up, Zed,” the leader said, no heat in his words. Despite that, the utter lack of any emotion frightened me.
“Make me,” he said. He came forward out of the darkness, his skin a perfect match for the shadows beyond. As he got closer, I saw that he didn’t have a shape so much as a suggestion of one. He held out his hand, palm up and that part of him appeared to solidify. “I’m Zed. Soothsayer for the Carnicus of the Nightflowers.”
Jasper placed his hand atop Zed’s and dipped his head. “Jasper.”
“A Wing,” he murmured. “It’s my pleasure, young man.” He shut his eyes for a moment, then placed his other hand on Jasper’s. “It will not be in vain, your sacrifice.”
I caught a fleeting glimpse of sorrow in Jasper’s eyes before it was gone and he was bowing his head. “Thank you.”
The asshole said, “You’re a Wing?” It wasn’t a question meant to be answered and Jasper ignored him.
What’s a fucking wing? I wanted to scream but kept my equally insincere smile on my face as I glared at the man who was now looking at Jasper as if he were a piece of meat in a shop.
Zed studied Nex for the longest time then nodded at him. He nodded back, his expression placid as usual. To me, Zed held out his hand and I placed mine on his.
He gasped, stumbled back a step and landed on his butt in the dirt. I knelt down beside him, apologizing though I didn’t know what I’d done to shock him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, fine. Please, I merely lost my balance.” When I attempted to grasp him under the arm to help him up, my hand went through him as if I’d tried to grasp smoke. His smile looked forced as he rose to his feet. “I can only hold my solid form for brief moments,” he said, seeing the confusion on my face.
I nodded like I knew what the hell was going on.
“We have an extra wagon, Leon. Yorloff won’t be upset at all not to have to fuss with the oxen.”
Leon crossed his arms over his chest. “Read her.”
Zed canted his head. “I beg your pardon.”
The ringmaster’s grin sharpened. “You read everybody. Read her too or she isn’t coming with us.”
“Of course.” Thin-lipped, he held out his hand without the slightest hesitation. I put mine on top of his and saw that it took every ounce of his will not to jump away from me. “You’ll find what you seek but it will not end your troubles.” He pulled his hand free as soon as he stopped speaking and I watched him fight not to rub it against his clothes.
Everyone looked at Leon, whose expression was still fixed in a grim-reaper’s smile. Finally, he said, “Traveling through the Anwar is hard enough without coddling virgies. Pull your weight, follow my orders, and perform if we come on travelers. Do that and I’ll get you through to the other side of the Anwar.” He strode off through the crowd who parted for him with haste.
Zed, for his part, ignored the ringmaster’s exit. “Come along. I’ll show you where your new home away from home is.”
The staring wasn’t the worst of the long walk through the crowd. Not knowing what some of them were was the worst. A woman with a snake’s body coiled and swayed to one side of the clearing and a man with a gaunt face and leathery bat wings loomed on the other. We cut through gilded and painted wagons until we came to one painted a deep, velvety purple. There weren’t any animals depicted on the sides, only sensuous swoops and swirls gilt in silver. “This will serve you well enough. Room for the three of you. Locks on the doors if you aren’t feeling friendly, and I might suggest using them for awhile, friendly or not. We all eat together and we set up and tear down together.” He opened a side door close to the front and disappeared inside.
I glanced at Jasper and then followed Zed inside. The wagon was bigger than I expected and sparer, too. I’d expected it to be draped in silks and velvets but instead saw sleek, blond wood and cream-colored carpet. It had the feel of an RV, with a small food preparation area and pull-out seating opposite. We could all stand in the main room without it feeling too crowded. I peeked behind me down a narrow hall. A tiny bathroom sat off to my right and at the end was a room holding a bed big enough Jasper and I could share it without touching.
On the opposite end was another, smaller bed space in a nook that jutted out over the top of the bench seat outside.
Zed muttered a few words and the snap of a protective circle going up zinged through me. “We don’t have long because someone will notice I put up a circle soon.” To me, he asked, “What are you?”
Direct, wasn’t he? “A human. With some other stuff mixed in to make me interesting.”
“Interesting. That’s one way to put it. You reek of fleshcrawler. And if I’m not mistaken, those are gills on your neck. You go and get yourself bit?”
“Sort of.” Would that explain everything about me he might sense as wrong? That couldn’t be a bad thing, unless they had a habit of killing fleshcrawlers, of course.
He stared, knowing there was more to me than he could figure out. “Be careful. Leon is dangerous. Take care you don’t talk much about what you’re really doing. Might be better to keep your mouths shut ‘til you’re quit of us.”
Good advice, all of it. “You aren’t surprised I’m a human? Here?”
“Why would I be? You found yourself some domar berries and made yourself at home. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
A shock of anger ran through me. “Wait, what?”
His tipped his head. “Did you not eat the berries? Don’t tell me the witches have started working on protecting humans with magic.”
“I was told there wasn’t any hope for humans who are brought to Midia.” Arsinua. Theleoni. Marantha. Hell, every person I met believed the same thing.
He shrugged. “Domar berries are a Wydling cure. Witch-folk won’t touch anything grown out in the Anwar. How did you survive the hook sickness, then, without magic?”
I couldn’t tell him about the heart, so I pointed to my gills.
He seemed to accept my non-explanation or maybe he didn’t care enough to challenge me. He banished the protection and opened the door, stopping on the bottom step. “Head my words. Keep your mouths shut about your true purpose and stay out of the ringmaster’s line of sight.”
The wagon rocked as he left. Nex floated down the hall to check out the wagon. Jasper sat down and I followed suit. “Well.”
“I do not like this place or that man,” Jasper said. “He’s dangerous.”
I wanted to say, ‘No shit, Sh
erlock,’ but I kept my words buttoned up inside.
“It is a place full of intrigue.” Nex sounded delighted as he floated back to us. I was glad someone was happy.
“What’s a wing?” I asked, as Nex bobbed toward the big bedroom.
“That’s what they call us, these people on the fringe of the Anwar. They can tell we’re something beyond Midian or human and know we create luck. So they call us Wings, the equivalent to your Earth angels, I suppose.”
“Ah.” Right. He’d told me that back at home. He was certainly pretty enough to be an angel. I could imagine large grey wings on his back and a sword in his hand. Because why be just any ole angel when you could be an avenging angel, right? “And domar berries? Did you know about them?”
He shrugged. “No. But I’m not human and the Theleoni who held me captive wouldn’t be discussing a cure, would they? Not when its the death of humans they are after.”
“True.” I had a brief, wild fantasy of rigging all the hooks with sprayers that would douse every human in domar berry juice, thus ending the trafficking once and for all. As if. “I wish I knew what Cyres looked like or anything about her. I could try to hook to her and save us all this trouble.”
“You can hook to people?”
“Well, I could with Arsinua’s help. Now?” I shrugged.
A bang on the door made us all jump. Okay, Nex didn’t jump since there was that whole matter of him not having legs. I swung the door open. A curvy woman with long, seaweed-like hair and scaled skin smiled up at me with piranha teeth. “You’re new. I’m Quorra. We must be good friends. May I see the head?” She didn’t let me answer, just pushed her way in, a fishy smell wafting in after her. When she saw Nex, she squealed. “You are adorable. Do you like to cuddle? Do you like breasts? I have nice breasts with which you can cuddle.” She cupped said breasts and damned if I didn’t agree with her, even as a straight chick. Their coloring reminded me of mother of pearl and she had pink shells for nipples.
Nex’s expression got as close to horror as I’d ever seen it and I had to look away before he saw me grinning.
“Quorra. Get out of there before you shed early. I swear, you’re empty headed at times.” The man who stopped in the doorway was tall and skinny with an incongruous fat face. When he saw me staring, he dipped his head. “Ma’am.”
“Oh Alton, the head is adorable and he has teeth like mine. I do so wish to cuddle with him.” She looked longingly at Nex but climbed back out of the trailer, her webbed hand slipping into Alton’s. “You will be at dinner?” She asked us.
“I suppose so,” I said, wishing—not for the first time—that I could take pictures to show Bethy and Liam. What other mom could say she met a real mermaid? With legs? And a fetish for disembodied heads?
They left with Quorra chattering all the way.
-FOURTEEN-
I knew the moment I saw her I had to save her. She was a mousy thing, scurrying along in her brother Leon’s wake. She didn’t strike me as timid or shy, in fact, I thought she had a lot of fight in her from the quick punch she sent flying into a kid’s ribs who yanked her hair. No, she wasn’t shy, she was blending in, trying to keep from being noticed by her brother.
Her nasty, overbearing, asshole of a brother.
He’d announced that his Carnicus had a new act. “They aren’t staying with us, aren’t part of our family,” he said, sneering over as if I gave a shit that he was leaving us out. “But they must work for their supper and our help. So they will soothsay and their Wing will help Darcy with the healings when needed.”
He said more but I tuned him out when he started yapping about how wonderful he was for allowing strangers to ride along with his Carnicus. I watched his sister―sister because she looked like a prettier, kinder version of him, down to the golden hair she kept hidden under a cap―when he was paying attention to her and when he wasn’t. She was like two different people. The mousy, don’t-notice-me person and the sneak-thief. Okay, my imagination was getting carried away with me at that description but I did see her lift the wallet out of Alton’s pocket without him even noticing until she handed it back to him.
He rubbed her head, smiling at her, but only when he was sure her brother wasn’t watching. No one took much notice of her at all if her brother’s sharp eyes were turned their direction. I itched to meet her and suss out what it was that made the alarm bells go off in my head. Maybe it was the way he stared, as if she were his girlfriend, not his sister. The proprietary way he pulled her close to him and draped his heavy arm over her shoulders, his fingers not quite brushing her breasts.
“Do you want him to kick us out?”
I looked over at Jasper, who was smiling at me, though his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What?”
“You’re glaring daggers at him. He will notice. He wants an excuse to dump us in the Anwar. Do you plan to give it to him? Smile at me.” He laughed and I forced a smile.
“He’s gross. Did you see the way he was practically groping her?”
“Yes. Did you see the way he watched you while he did it?”
No. Shit. My facial expressions tended to run wild, or so I was told. I thought I did a good job of masking my emotions but most people told me that wasn’t true. “So he’s what, taunting me?”
“Out in the Anwar, his word will be law. He will have the upper hand. Wild magic is dangerous and unpredictable and he drinks it like wine. Can you see it?” He brushed a hair from my face, hiding the press of his thumb between my eyebrows.
He wanted me to look at the asshole with my Magic Eye but now I felt self-conscious. I opened up my vision and looked at everyone else first. Saw the mermaid and her sea-teal aura. Alton with a sturdy brown light around him. A few who were black, tinted in different colors. Some red, some green. I took my time, hoping that Leon had gotten bored and turned his gaze on someone else. He had, staring down at a tattoo-covered woman whose pale white face and bright blue lips made her look like a hypothermia victim.
He was crazy looking. Great gouts of magic poured off him. Sparks flew. A black, swirling mass sat where his heart should have been, sucking at and spitting out the magic in the air around him. It was disconcerting and appalling. I turned away, sickened.
“Do you see now, how dangerous he is?”
I nodded, not sure I would be able to eat supper after seeing that―that wrongness. Then my stomach grumbled in protest at my weak sensibilities.
Kill it.
‘I don’t have a reason to.’ Yet.
It is broken. Kill it now and save later trouble.
“I wish it were that easy,” I muttered, earning a look from Jasper.
It is. Foolish human.
Dinner consisted of wild boar, tubers and veggies foraged from the Anwar, and a divine pie made from regular old apples. Or so I thought. It wasn’t until Quorra asked how I liked the mute pie that I was told the story of the grinning trees and screaming fruit. (Blood ran like sap and could be used, so I was told, to trick a fleshcrawler into giving away its secrets.) Nex snorted at that and told me he had never heard such a preposterous tale in his life.
That night I heard the screams. They woke me from a dead sleep and I leaned over Jasper to peer out the window into the black.
“Is everything all right?” If he was disconcerted by waking with me draped over him, he didn’t show it.
“Did you hear that?”
Another scream. I moved and Jasper took my place at the window. “No one is running.”
“I'm going to check it out.”
“Devany, that may not be wise.”
I didn’t care. Someone, some girl was screaming and I wasn’t going to sit around and ignore it. I pulled on my jeans and slipped my feet into my shoes, sans socks. The night air was warm and rich with sweet floral smells. I slipped between the wagons, listening, moving cautiously, not sure what I might encounter in the darkness. “Come on,” I whispered. “Scream again.”
She did and I corrected my direction and aime
d for the large tent in the middle of the circled wagons. I slipped between the canvas and squinted into the gloom. A woman sagged in the center by the main pole, and a smaller form crouched beside her. The remains of an animal steamed in the cool night air, its guts strewn from its belly with a blood trail that led to the woman.
I discarded several things I could’ve asked, “Is everything okay?” one of those gems. It was obvious everything was not okay. I opted for walking in with heavy footsteps, my hands held away from my body to show them I didn’t have a weapon. “Can I help?”
The girl jerked her head up, her eyes narrowing. To the woman, she said, “See Tam? She heard your screams and she’s across camp.”
“I can’t stop it this time,” the woman moaned, her voice more whine than pain.
“You have to. You know what he’ll do if you change.”
I stopped a few yards from the duo. Said, “What can I do?”
“Can you keep her from changing?” She sounded so much like Bethy when my daughter was annoyed with me that I had to tamp down on a sudden, fierce bout of homesickness.
I opted for curiosity, figuring snark would only give her what she wanted. “What change?”
The young woman huffed, yanking her hair back to stuff under her hat. “Why don’t you go back to your stupid friends and stay out of things that don’t concern you. Okay?”
Lucky her, I dealt with people under stress all the time and was used to the snippiness that came from tough situations. “Is she in danger if she changes? Do we need to get her out of here?”
Another huff. Then a slower breath. “It’s no use. She can’t go back home, the witch-folk won’t allow her back in town, now that the wild magic has caught her. Best thing she could hope for is being sold.”
Best thing was to be sold? Lord. “Okay. What’s she changing into? Can we hide her?”
She rubbed the sobbing woman’s back. “No. Where?” To the shivering, sobbing woman, she said, “Tam, you have to fight it. He left the cat to force the change.”
