by Leanne Leeds
“When he’s drunk, he says he loves me,” Gunther said. “When he’s sober, he’s angry and dismissive of me. I don’t… my memories of him as a child were not of this man. My parents were happy. He was kind once.”
“How old were you when your mother passed away?”
“Nine years old. We went for a walk to pick wildflowers for my father. My mother would do little things like that.” He smiled and leaned back. “My father could manifest anything she wanted, anything at all. But she loved to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“The human way.”
“Maybe.” Gunther fell silent, and I waited for him to finish the story or add to it, but he didn’t.
“He assured everyone that the Witches’ Council would not come after you. Do you think that was a lie? Has he said you’re threatened in any way?”
“No, but I don’t know that he would tell me if I was.” Gunther got up and leaned over his father, extracting the flask from his hand. He pointed to a rainbow-colored afghan sitting next to me, and I handed it to him so he could wrap his father in it. I could see, clearly, the love that Gunther had for his turbulent father even though he felt hurt by him. Family relationships are so complicated.
Ringmaster families may be the most complex of all.
After we dimmed the lights and tucked Roland in, we left the log cabin to find Deo.
“Why didn’t you accuse my father of being involved in the kidnapping?” Gunther asked. “I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought he was doing it to move against you. Especially considering how rude he was to you when you first met.”
“Rudeness and kidnapping aren’t necessarily related.” As we walked through the circus grounds, eyes peeked out at us from every direction. “I knew he was telling the truth to your folks last night. Well, wait—I knew he was telling the truth about feeling like it had nothing to do with you. I sensed nothing from him to show I should suspect him.”
“That’s a handy talent to have, I guess.”
“Especially for a lawgiver.”
Gunther stopped mid-stride and turned to face me. “Wait a second. You’ve been made a lawgiver?”
“Yeah, my uncle thought it would help me to be more social with the folks at the Magical Midway. I have been spending a lot of time with close friends and… well, and you.” Gunther smiled warmly at me in response, and my heart skipped a beat.
Must be heartburn. Yeah, that’s definitely it. Heartburn because of all the stress I was under. Kidnappings, Witches’ Councils, greedy naiads and crazy lion shifters. It was heartburn and anxiety, and not the way the wind blew through his golden hair or the way he—
Heartburn. The end.
We were staring at each other and not talking. For too long. I stepped back and coughed.
“You need some water?” I shook my head no. “Well, good luck. Being a lawgiver is a pretty intense gig. Mabel’s going to have apoplexy.”
“Oh, yeah? Why?” I asked, scanning as we walked for a lion shifter.
“Reforming society is a big responsibility,” Gunther said. “Writing laws, enacting them, enforcing them.”
“Isn’t that what I do for the Magical Midway, anyway? Ringmaster omnipotence and all that stuff? I think he just wanted to come up with something that I could make my own, you know?” Gunther nodded. “It doesn’t sound all that much different than what I was told ringmasters do, anyway.”
“Oh, it’s quite a bit different,” Gunther laughed. I looked at him and raised my eyebrow. “It gets you a vote on the Witches’ Council.”
“It gets me a what now?” I shouted at him as I grabbed his arm. Heads popped out like a shot from behind curtains and inside of windows. Gunther looked around and waved at the faces painted with concern, and they slowly disappeared back into the darkness. Turning back he smiled again.
“Your uncle didn’t tell you this?”
“No!”
“That’s why there are no lawgivers anymore,” Gunther said. “The Witches’ Council slowly voted them obsolete. Only the circuses still have their seats, if they choose to take them, because of the bloodline stuff.”
“Okay, wait a minute, the circuses all could have appointed lawgivers to sit on the Witches’ Council? And they didn’t? There were way more of them then there were of those witches that aren’t from circuses. Why would they not go and correct some of this garbage that goes on in the witch world?”
“They didn’t care, I guess?” Gunther shrugged. “I suspect the ringmasters were always suspicious of other ringmasters. Friendly but distant was the closest anyone ever got. The relationship you and I have…” He paused.
“It’s not normal? Common?”
“Everyone protected their own circus, their own people. The ringmasters would have needed to join together to plan some kind of coup, and there’s nothing in our history to suggest they were ever friendly enough to do that. The Council divided and conquered.”
“So over hundreds of years, that power was just ignored? Never used?”
“Yep.”
“Now you and I are meandering through the backyard trying to uncover plots to take us out because they just didn’t bother to vote?” Maybe it was my human upbringing or my public human schooling, but these influential people trading a vote in how the world evolves for small pond power just incensed me.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad. But yeah, pretty much.”
As we walked behind an enormous, shining roller coaster, Delilah ran up to Gunther and patted his shoe. “Hey, there, little one,” Gunther cooed as he leaned over to pluck the tiny cat off the ground. “Slow down there, speedy, and tell me again?” His face steadied as he stared Delilah in the eye and they interacted with each other.
There is nothing as hot as a handsome guy with a kitten.
Heartburn, darn it.
“Delilah says that Deo is in the pub.”
“You have a pub?”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, where do you guys go to just hang out together when there’s a big group?”
“We had that big party under the big top once.”
“You should get a pub,” Gunther said as he deposited the kitten on his shoulder. “It’s important for folks to have someplace casual to go hang out as a group. Otherwise, everyone stays with their own group in their living areas and no one mixes. Or they stay in their house, and no one ever sees them.”
“Like me, you mean. You’re talking about me.”
“I would never say such things about a lawgiver.”
I could swear that kitten laughed.
Gunther wasn’t kidding. It was a full-on fancy pub. In the middle of a circus. Huh.
As we sat down at one of ten tables arranged around the wooden structure, the distinctions between the Makepeace Circus and the Magical Midway were sharper. Almost all at the Magical Midway looked impermanent on the surface by design, an old-fashioned tent circus with smaller trailer structures. That they never moved wasn’t the issue. They needed to look like they could.
The Makepeaces had no such apprehensions about human curiosity judging by their design. While most of the structures were log cottages and could, theoretically, be taken down and moved, it would require far more trucks than their circus had. The rides were extensive and more permanent-looking than our own.
“Don’t you worry that patrons will question that all this is here?” I asked Gunther after he ordered two fizzies for us from a sultry waitress. I didn’t know what a fizzy was, but I wasn’t planning on drinking it, anyway. Poison. Didn’t want to be poisoned on top of all the other issues I was dealing with.
“There’s an obfuscation spell permanently on the grounds. Has been for a few generations. No one really questions, not even local law enforcement.”
“That’s pretty smart,” I said as I swiveled my head looking for Deo. “So what do you know about Deo?”
“Not much,” Gunther replied as the waitress placed two pink
and blue drinks in front of us. He nodded and smiled, and she bowed slightly in return. “He’s been here five or six years, maybe? We only have five lion shifters, and they keep to themselves. Try the fizzy, you’ll like it.”
I shook my head. “I’m pretty careful with what I eat or drink these days.” I checked the time on my watch and saw it was late afternoon. “Do you see Deo? I will have to get out of here soon.”
Gunther scanned the crowded room. “There,” he pointed to the back corner behind the bar. “He’s in the back corner booth over there.”
I stretched to look over folks sitting and having a good time and saw Deo tucked into the booth. He sat in the far back corner next to another lion shifter, and it looked like that other lion shifter was letting him have it.
“So, how do we do this? I don’t have any powers, and you’re not a ringmaster. Can your magic hold him?”
“What do you mean you don’t have any powers?” Gunther asked, perplexed. “You’re a lawgiver. If he’s guilty, you can do almost anything to him.”
“Even here at your circus?”
“Anywhere. Paranormal towns, other circuses.”
“How did I suddenly get all this power? My uncle and I just had a chat. There has to be more involved than that.”
“Did you get the lawgiver ring?” I held up my hand to show Gunther the small, thin, plain ring that now encircled my finger. “The power is yours. You can’t give it back or lay it down now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. I grabbed the ring and tugged, but it didn’t move so much as a millimeter. “Oh, you must be kidding me. It won’t come off!”
“You don’t get a whole lot of knowledge from your uncle before you agree to do things, do you?” Gunther asked.
“They’re supposed to be training me! I assume they’d tell me anything I needed to know beforehand!”
“Charlotte, you have to qualify some of this stuff a little better.” Gunther’s face grew thoughtful, and he leaned in. “I have no doubt they believed this role to be a good one for you, and I agree with them. I think it’s cool. If I could do it, I would.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I’m half-human. The ring just falls off my finger. My father tried. He thought making me lawgiver would protect me from the Witches’ Council if they ever made a move against me.” Gunther shrugged. “It didn’t work.”
Heartburn again. We sat across the table, looking into one another’s eyes. I reminded myself of what my family had warned me about. Gunther was to be the ringmaster here, and I was already the ringmaster of the Magical Midway. We both had obligations and magical constraints that ensured any relationship between us could never work.
Well, okay, it would be hard. Less than twelve-hour dates during the day or during the night. We couldn’t live together. But people make long distance relationships work all the time, didn’t they?
Stop it, Charlotte.
“Are you all right? I’m sorry if I… never mind. Are you ready to talk to him?”
“How do I use the power of the ring?”
“I know ‘freeze’ works if you come upon the guilty party, so that should restrain him if Mark is correct about who kidnapped him.”
“Just ‘freeze’? Like a cop drawing a gun on a suspect?”
“Where do you think they got it from?”
Good point.
As we made our way over to the booth, Deo spotted us halfway across the darkened room. As he jumped up and scrambled over the lion shifter that had been lecturing him to get away, I took a deep breath and shouted.
“Freeze, Deo!”
Well, that worked better than I expected. The lion shifter not only froze in a particularly inelegant position (with one leg hanging in the air and his entire body at a ridiculous angle over the table), but the rest of the revelers also fell silent as they stared at me with apprehension.
I ignored everyone else and slid into the booth. Gunther slipped into the other side, penning the two lion shifters in the corner. “Sit down,” I told the contorted lion shifter, and he did, facing me. Deo looked like Leo, he of the expensive French conditioner. So much so I suspected they were related, if not twins.
“Do you know who I am?”
“A witch,” Deo hissed.
“I’m Charlotte Astley of the Magical Midway. You kidnapped one of my people, Mark Botsworth,” I told him as his eyes widened. “I want to know why.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions,” Deo said. “You are in league with the enemy, half-breed. Your father would be sickened by your betrayal.”
“Charlotte asked his permission before coming to question you,” Gunther told him. “So, get off your high unicorn, Deo. Answer her questions. She’s a lawgiver so she can make you comply. I don’t think you want her to do that.”
“A dimwitted witch that lived in the human world a ringmaster, and now a lawgiver? It’s as bad as the half-human supposed heir we are stuck with here,” Deo seethed as his eyes narrowed. Gunther stared back unflinching, his face calm. Deo’s attack bounced off him as if it didn’t bother him at all.
“Be that as it may, lion shifter, you kidnapped one of the residents of her circus. Neither she or my father will be very pleased with you if you continue this bravado. Talk. Now.”
Wow, that formal ringmaster speech talent Gunther has is super hot.
I must be catching a cold. Besides the heartburn, I’m getting the shivers. Is it cold in here? It must be cold in here. Or maybe I’m getting sick.
“I did it for the Makepeace Circus. I was just going to keep him until the end of the week and then shove him back on the grounds when the seven days were up. I didn’t hurt him.”
“What would that accomplish?” I asked.
“It would ensure that you had a human on your grounds when the Witches’ Council came to make you pay. It would ensure you had no time to find a way out of your just punishment.”
“Make me pay for what? Punishment for what?”
Deo clamped his mouth shut and glared at me. I waited, but the lion shifter would say no more. I looked at Gunther, and then back to Deo. Then I had an idea.
“Well, at least Leo is dead, and we won’t have to worry about him,” I told Gunther offhand as I scooted out of the booth. My little white lie caused a contained explosion from the mostly frozen lion shifter.
“You stupid witch! I will ensure that you are eaten by the fiercest of lions in retribution for the death of my brother! He only became involved in this plot to protect Serena and guard his pride! He never would have worked with the Witches’ Council if you ringmasters guarded the old laws!”
“Hush, now,” I told Deo, and his mouth snapped shut. I could get used to this lawgiver thing. So far, it seemed to work just like the ringmaster power. This could be a pretty convenient power to have.
As I sat back down, I grabbed a napkin and wiped Deo’s spittle from my arm. The lion shifter sitting next to Deo had remained silent for the entire exchange, but now his shoulders slumped, and he buried his head in his hands.
“And what’s your feeling about all this?” The second shifter raised his head and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, you. You don’t look too thrilled with your compadre over there.”
“Leo and Deo are angry lions, ma’am. Their mother thought they would be better off at the circus with my wife and me,” he responded. “She thought they’d get discipline, a work ethic. The boys are a little bit on the entitled side, but this is far beyond what any of us thought they would do.”
“Charlotte, this is Bubba,” Gunther said.
“Bubba McAfee, Ms. Charlotte,” the man said as he stuck out his hand. The older lion shifter had a distinct southern drawl and dressed like he had just finished at a garage for the day. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. My apologies for the trouble my nephews have caused you.”
“Bubba is the pride leader at the Makepeace Circus, Charlotte. His family has been with us for two generations.”
/> “But not Deo? And Leo and Deo are brothers?”
“Twins, ma’am,” Bubba nodded. “My sister, Lula Bell, asked me to take her boys when they were a little bit more than she could handle. Leo used to be here a few years ago until he met that naiad and ran away to your circus.”
“Naiad?”
“Alexa Atwater,” Bubba said and sighed. “That girl had Leo so twisted up the boy thought up was down and down was up.”
Deo jerked and vibrated within his invisible magical encasement, his eyes waggling as if he wanted to protest. The enchantment around him was tight enough that not even a moan escaped from him, but he stared daggers at his uncle.
“Leo left the Makepeace Circus to chase that girl from town to town. She left him for bigger and better things, so I heard. I tried to get him to come back, but then the pride leader at Magical Midway died and he saw his chance to lead. A chance he never could have earned on his own.”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. “Since he was the only male, when he showed up he got to be in charge? Even though he was new and young, and clearly much more of a jerk than the women?”
“Now, young lady, I didn’t make the rules. I just live in a world with them. But yep,” Bubba nodded. “I reckon that’s pretty much how it happened. With no one to challenge Leo, he was in charge.”
“I swear, the paranormal world is like stepping back in time,” I muttered to myself. “Did Leo really help Deo kidnap Mark? It seems kind of obvious considering they’re brothers and what Deo just said, but I’d like to be sure exactly what role he played. He’s not dead—that was a little bit of trickery on my part.”
“We were talking about it when y’all walked in,” Bubba nodded. “I was giving the boy what for when y’all moseyed on over here. From what I understand, Leo pushed Mark off the circus grounds, and Deo snatched him up and held him for his brother.”
“Leo was pretty unhappy that one of the lionesses, Serena, was dating Mark. I guess that could be part of the reason he made sure Mark would be on the grounds when the Witches’ Council came to pass their judgment. That doesn’t just get rid of Mark, though.”
