He landed in front of me in a crouch of yellow and black stripes and big, ridiculous shoes. Flashing up with inhuman speed, he knocked the gun out of my hand.
He leered at me with his pulled-back grin, slobber pooling in his stretched-out lips.
I punched him dead in the mouth.
My knuckles crashed across his teeth, slicing open in a wash of pain. His clown face jerked to the side on impact. When he turned back to me, his red nose was hanging off his face. It twisted to the left, one nail pulled out of his skull, the other hanging on out of spite. The original nose had been chopped off, leaving just a nasal cavity. Slivers of bone clung to the tip of the nail that had pulled free.
My stomach lurched.
The clown hit me in the chest. I saw it coming, twisting back to soften the blow. It was still like being hit with a cannonball. The impact lifted me off my feet and knocked me back. I hit the ground, rolling, flipping back up into a crouch.
My chest felt like it had caved in. I stayed there, fighting for air. My hand slid back behind me, fingers skimming along my belt.
The clown zipped toward me like he was being pulled in a wagon. His feet didn’t move, he just slid across the ground like magick. A razor-taloned hand whipped back and snapped forward.
Toward my throat.
I jerked back from the fist full of knives. They grazed the air in front of me, tips snagging and slicing through my T-shirt. My arm snapped up holding the garrote. The hair-thin piano wire looped around the clown’s wrist. My fingers clamped on the steel ring at the end of the wire. One swift yank and the wire sliced deep through undead flesh.
The clown’s hand popped off at the wrist, turning to dust as it hit the ground.
The grease-painted bloodsucker danced back, mutilated lips jerking around his shrieks. The audience clapped.
Snapping the garrote between my hands, I held it up so he could see it.
“You’re going down, clown.”
The audience roared.
The clown shook his stump out. As I watched, tendrils stretched out of it, waving around. They grew, thickening, hardening, turning into a hand.
Oh hell no.
My foot snapped out low. The steel toe cracked across the clown’s knee, knocking it out from under him. It popped wetly, giving out under my kick. The clown dropped.
Vampires spend their whole existence preying on people weaker than they are. They cull from the herd of humanity like jackals, running down the sick, the old, the weak. They pull prey that not only won’t fight back, but can’t fight back.
Standing tall, garrote wrapped around his ruffled neck, I showed that clown what a motherfucking lion can do.
I stepped through the cloud of dust made as his head popped free, looking for my next victim.
There were no cheers from the audience.
14
An angry fly buzzed by my face, too fast to see. I jerked away. Another one buzzed toward me, slicing deep into my forearm.
What the hell?
I looked down. The pain didn’t strike until after my mind realized what I was seeing.
One of my shuriken had all but disappeared inside the muscle of my forearm.
Just a few pointed metal tips bristled out like a joke. It didn’t look real as blood beaded up along the edge of the gash. It felt real. The metal ground between the bones of my arm, rubbing deep inside. Icicles stabbed up my arm, nerves scrambling to make sense of the input overload.
The garrote spilled from my limp fingers.
The Ringmaster stood, endlessly tall. He seemed to stretch to the top of the circus tent. His skeleton arm rolled forward, snapping the bullwhip. It cracked the sound barrier a split second before hitting me like a gunshot. The tip of it cut my shirt, splitting the flesh underneath open.
Father Mulcahy rose up, sword in hand. The Ringmaster was there before he could get his feet under him. The vampire’s hand flashed out, clipping the priest on the chin.
He dropped like a sack of potatoes.
The Ringmaster turned to me, glee naked on his face.
“The game is over!” His arm lashed back and then out.
Time shrank around me. I had hours to watch the bullwhip cut through the air toward me. Before I could blink, it snaked around my throat. My hands had just started to move when the Ringmaster gave the whip a vicious yank.
The whip became a python around my throat, a twenty-foot anaconda. Constricting. Choking. The Ringmaster danced as he reeled me in, hand over hand. The ground ripped at my knees as I was dragged forward. The pain of my crushing windpipe tore at my sanity. Almost blinded by searing black agony, I had more staticky darkness in my eyes than anything else.
I could barely make out the Ringmaster as he loomed over me. He was a stretched-out shadow, taloned arm pulled back, ready to drop like the sword of Damocles.
My hearing had gone, ears filled with a roar. It raged, climbing higher in volume, crowding everything out of my collapsing mind.
I was drowning in that roar.
Dying.
Here I come.
15
I was shoved out of the murkiness by a chorus of screams and the familiar oil-and-gasoline smell of an American hot rod.
I didn’t come up easily. I had to claw my way to consciousness. White light washed over my eyelids, popping them open.
The Comet was roaring toward me.
I threw myself backward as the car crashed into the Ringmaster. He crumpled under the wheels, driven to the ground and pinned by nearly two tons of America’s finest manufacturing.
His fanged mouth opened and closed without sound. His upper body stuck out to the side of the car, the tire pinning him across the stomach. A foot was twisted up behind his head, and one long arm was spiraled like a wreath beside him. Everything looked broken and crushed except his face; that was intact. The red had bled out of his eyes with pain, fangs retracted.
The Comet jerked into reverse as I stood to my feet, lurching backward. The Ringmaster rolled as the car backed off him, leaving him on his stomach. Everything about him was broken. Arms and legs twisted into kindling, spine bent wrong. If he wasn’t already dead, there was no way he would survive.
The door swung open and Sully stepped out, grin on his face. “Somebody call a cab?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I couldn’t just run away. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. So I hot-wired your car and drove it in here to rescue you and the Father.” He looked sheepish.
Well I’ll be damned.
“You did good.”
“Thanks.”
I pointed over to Father Mulcahy. He was sitting up, looking dazed and confused but awake. He was a tough old bastard; if he was conscious, he would probably be okay. “Help him in the car and then come help me.
He nodded and got moving.
My arm pulsed, sending a throb of agony shooting from fingertip to shoulder. My arm seized up. I looked down. Blood had stopped pouring, the wound sealing around the shuriken embedded in my arm, but it still leaked. It took me a second to rip a strip of my T-shirt off with one hand and my teeth. I fumbled with it.
“Hey, mister.”
I looked around. Realized I was standing just a few feet away from the bleacher. A few feet away from the captive audience. I had forgotten they were there. The Girl Scout troop leader sat with her girls still huddled together. She pulled her arms free, reaching out toward me. “Let me help with that.”
I stepped over. “We’ll get you folks free in a few minutes.”
“Of course you will, you didn’t save us to leave us chained up as a cruel joke.” Her laugh at her own humor was weak, choking out and twittering away. Her eyes were red, puffy from crying but calm now. Her hair was long around a pretty, round face. “Give me your arm; we’ve studied first aid.”
I held it out.
Her hands were soft, gentle. Her fingers hovered around one of the points that stuck up from my skin. “Take a deep breath.” I did. The shuri
ken vibrated a stomach-churning roll through my guts as her fingers clamped down on it. She gave a hard, swift yank, sliding the wheel of blades out of my arm.
Everything blinked in a hot flash, my whole body washed weak. Bright new blood bubbled to the surface of the wound. The woman twisted the piece of shirt around it, pulling the edges together. Her fingers were sure as she tied the knot.
It felt better immediately. Not good. It still hurt like a bitch, but now the pain was a step away, instead of sharp and immediate.
Her hand touched mine. “Thank you. I don’t know your name.”
“Deacon Chalk.”
“Thank you, Deacon Chalk.” Her smile was nice. Shy, but inviting.
Grateful.
I turned and walked away.
Father Mulcahy was in the passenger seat. A bruise blossomed on his square chin and he was hollow-eyed from exhaustion, but he was smoking a cigarette.
Yep, he’d probably be alright.
Sully stood outside the door. He nodded toward the troop leader. “She give you her digits, man?”
“No.”
“She didn’t give them or you didn’t take them?”
“Neither; nothing happened.”
“More’s the pity.”
“Not really.” I popped the trunk on the Comet with a button on my key fob. “Get the bolt cutters out of there and get these people free so they can go home and start to forget what happened.”
“They won’t forget what happened, man. Not something like this!”
“Not completely, no, but they got mind screwed by a vampire. They’ll forget the truth and the rest will become bad dreams and a fear of the circus. Vampire powers work that way.”
“How do you know they were mind screwed?”
“Do you think they would be this calm if they hadn’t been? Look at them.” I gestured around. “They just watched a bloody battle with vampires. They should be screaming. Instead they’re sitting, docile as Hindu cows.”
“Good point.”
I waved him away. He went to the trunk, rummaged around, came out with the bolt cutters, and started going around to the chains.
I looked at the priest. “How are you?”
He held up his cigarette. “Fine now. You?”
“Arm hurts like a bitch, throat’s on fire, but I’m about to chain up this vampire asshole and drop him in the trunk, so it hasn’t been all bad.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll be along in a minute to help.”
“Relax, Padre, I got this.”
He nodded and I turned away to look for my gun and my hatchet.
16
“We’re on our way.”
“Hurry.” Larson said over the connection.
I pushed the accelerator to the floor.
17
Larson’s clinic was crawling with people. They filled the lobby. Men, women, children, some of them were even human. Every chair was filled and people leaned against the walls and sat on the floor. They moved aside as I pushed open the door, scrambling to clear a path.
The room was charged with panicked lycanthropy. It rubbed raw against my nerves. My power bubbled in my veins. I flashed hot and queasy, like food poisoning on a summer day. It stopped me dead in the doorway, fighting down the urge to be sick. My power had been overtaxed tonight, running wide open at the circus. Deep breaths in and out as I tried to pull it together, to fold it away. It’s like trying to not throw up when you are feeling sick and somebody puts food in front of you.
Every eye turned to stare. It could have been me. I know I looked like hell. Sawdust and vamp dust stuck to me with dried blood, left arm tied with a scrap of shirt and soaked in blood, battered and bruised. All of that covered in a layer of kerosene soot from setting that damned circus on fire after getting all the people free.
Or it could have been the vampire wrapped in chains that was thrown over my shoulder.
Larson’s voice called out from down the hall on the other side of the lobby. I started walking toward it, Father Mulcahy and Sully trailing behind.
Larson was pulling a syringe out of a kid’s arm. He was a high schooler, upperclassman from the looks of him. Shoulders just starting to fill out into the promise of what he would be as a man. He was sleekly muscular, too short for basketball and too light for football, so I would guess wrestling or even swimming. His head drooped almost as soon as Larson laid the syringe down.
He slumped back on the cot and closed his eyes, going completely still.
“What are you doing?”
Larson rolled over. “We put the word out warning people. The ones who are prepared have locked themselves up, the ones who don’t have that option are here and we are putting them down before the virus turns them rabid.”
I looked at the kid on the cot. He wasn’t moving, chest still. “Putting them down? You mean . . .”
“What? No! Sedating them. Jesus, Deacon! What the fuck?”
“It’s been a long night.”
I shrugged, tossing the Ringmaster off my shoulder, dumping him onto the floor with a metallic clatter. He was cocooned in chain, wrapped tightly with duct tape across his mouth. I had taken the hatchet to his arms, whacking them off at the shoulders, then used the flat back to knock out his fangs, taking away both his weapons.
Larson looked down at the vampire, then up at me. “What’s this?”
“He used his blood and magick to make the virus.”
“I’ll get to work.”
18
We stood over Fallene’s bed. She was sunk into the mattress still in Were-bat form. Her skin pulled taut and thin, outlining her bones as clear as an X-ray. The disease was burning her up, boiling her down to sinew and bone. Short hair littered the sheets and pillow where her fur had fallen out, leaving her shivering under the blanket. She wasn’t sedated or chained down, too weak to be a threat.
Larson was pushing a syringe full of antivirus into her IV. “This may not work.”
I looked down at Fallene’s condition. “Can’t hurt.”
He nodded sharply. His thumb pressed the plunger. The thick, brackish liquid pumped into her veins. He pulled away.
We stood and watched.
At first, there was no effect. Fallene lay still, only breathing.
Then her eyes opened.
They were huge in the hollows of her skull, like a cartoon. She blinked at us, mahogany brown irises glowing fever-bright.
Her mouth worked, trying to speak. Her skull shifted, the bones in her face moving. The bat receded, her humanity slipping through. Once her throat was human enough for speech, she said, “It’s so pretty.”
Father Mulcahy leaned in. “What’s so pretty, child?”
Her head turned toward him, small smile on her lips. “All the Angels. Shiny.” Her eyes fluttered closed.
She stopped breathing.
Larson lurched forward. “No. No. NO!” He shoved his fingers under her jaw, feeling for a pulse.
He sat back.
“She’s gone. It didn’t work.” He pounded his thigh with a fist, beating the useless limb like he hated it. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit to hell!”
“Larson.”
“It should have worked! It should have cured her!”
“Larson.”
“We’re about to have an epidemic on our hands!”
My foot lashed out, kicking his chair. He slung sideways as the chair skidded away from me. He whipped around, face purple with rage, spit flying from his mouth as it opened to yell at me.
I shoved my hand in his face, palm up.
“Shut up for two seconds and look at her.”
He drew up short. “What?”
“Look at your patient before you flip the fuck out.”
He wheeled over. I pointed at Fallene. Death had made her human. She lay peacefully on the bed, still skeletal, but her skin was clean and whole.
Every cut, every scrape, every bruise had vanished.
She had healed.
Larson ran his
hand through his hair, pushing it back off his face. He stared at Fallene for a long moment. Wheeling over, he picked up an empty syringe and stuck it into her thin, thin arm. Once it was full of blood he rolled over to a counter that held an array of medical equipment, including a microscope that he pulled to the edge.
I watched him work for a minute, doing something I couldn’t see. He leaned in, eye to the viewer of the microscope. He stayed that way for a long minute. Finally he looked up and smiled.
“Are we good?” I ask.
“I think we just might be.”
Hallelujah.
19
It took a while to inoculate the lycanthropes in the area, but we eventually got them all. Larson worked like mad, brewing up batches of antivirus. We kept the Ringmaster around long enough to supply the blood needed. Once we were done, I tossed him out into the sun to die.
Kat finally found Fallene’s parents living in Washington state. They flew out and took her home for burial. They were a nice, unassuming couple. I didn’t tell them that their daughter died in a ploy to try to kill me. Sorry, but I didn’t. It wouldn’t have helped. I did assure them that I killed the bastards responsible.
They weren’t comforted by that at all.
I knew they wouldn’t be, but it was all I had to offer.
Sometimes it’s enough.
When it’s not, all you can do is keep moving forward.
Either way, it’s the job I do.
Loyals and True Believers,
Can you believe it? Here we are five releases deep into the Deaconverse and things are really starting to cook. I want to take a moment and thank you, truly thank you for all your support and love for Deacon and his family of misfits.
You have no idea how much what you do means. Every review you have posted, every status you have updated about the Deaconverse, every tweet, and pin, and e-mail, and conversation over whatever beverage you enjoy, it builds this thing that you and I are doing. You are the soldiers on the ground spreading the word and you are mighty. Keep it up. Tell everyone you can and let’s take Deacon global.
Circus of Blood Page 5
