Vagabond Circus Series

by Sarah Noffke

  “What? Why would you say that, Titus?” Zuma said, stepping forward. She felt Finley and Jack behind her, just entering the tent. She made room for them.

  Titus’s eyes slid to the left to Jack, who had been wheeled in beside the girl.

  “Oh, fuck,” Titus whispered in horror, his eyes on Jack and then his two legs sticking out in front of him.

  Zuma then expected that Titus would rush to the acrobat or rush to get Fanny. Instead he laid his head back down in his arms on the table top. Defeated.

  Zuma was about to reach out to the creative director when something jostled the flap at the other side of the tent. It parted and someone slid through it. Someone tall, lean. That part of the tent was dark and whoever entered was cast in shadow. Suddenly Finley was on Zuma’s other side, his hand in hers gripping it tight. Tight enough it hurt. The tall man slipped from the low part of the tent until he’d moved just beside Titus, who was still slumped over. He moved gradually, tracing his feet in front of him, his hands clasped behind his back. It almost looked like a prance to Zuma, but with a sinister grace.

  The man was the color of copy paper, his skin having a translucent quality. His head was bald and reminded Zuma of the top of a pen, it was so pointy. His long neck revolved his head on each of the acrobats, almost skipping over her. His rodent-like greenish-yellow eyes paused on Jack.

  “Escape, did you? Well, that’s fine. Going forward, I’ll relish every opportunity I have to walk all over you,” the man said to Jack, his voice scratchy and quick on some words and too slow on others.

  “What are you doing here, Knight?” Jack said his words with a rough hiss, shock draining all color from his face. Never before had Zuma seen that look on her friend’s face. It sent a surge of panic through her chest.

  Knight! Zuma thought. The realization brought a gasp to her mouth. She looked over at the man with the hooked nose in utter disbelief.

  Knight didn’t seem to hear Jack’s question. His eyes slithered to Finley beside her. “But who I’m most glad to see is you, Teleporter.”

  Zuma noticed Finley’s jaw flex. The pulse in his neck doubled in speed. His back tensed. And his chin dropped, taking his eyes to the ground. And then all his confidence had fallen away, making his shoulders slump slightly.

  A ghostly laugh shot out of Knight’s mouth making Zuma jump inside. “It is so unfortunate that my dear old brother has died,” Knight said, unmistakable glee in his voice. “But what isn’t unfortunate in the least is that as his only living heir I now own fifty-one percent of Vagabond Circus.”

  No! Zuma thought, her mind racing with dread and panic. She was too stunned to use her telepathy to communicate with anyone. Her vision dimmed, taking with it her combat sense. She was being sucked into shock.

  Knight brought up a large hand and pointed a finger at Finley. His nails were long and perfectly round. “You, my boy, appear to once again work for me. Congratulations!” he said and let out another laugh, one so loud in the small space, it almost made Zuma cover her ears. “What do you have to say about that, Finley?”

  To Zuma’s astonishment Finley dropped her hand and then sunk into a low bow; all this was done in a quick graceful movement. When Finley stood his eyes were different. The guy she knew was gone, whisked away by that single bow. And then before her stood an accosted soul.

  “Thank you, Master. It is an honor to serve you again,” Finley said, his voice low, his tone tortured.

  Keep Reading for the Next Installment in the Vagabond Circus Series!

  Acknowledgements:

  We write alone, but we create in the moments when exchanging with a friend, when listening, when life is happening with other people. That’s one of the main reasons I write an acknowledgement page. This happens because of the people in my life, no matter how much I interact with them, they impact my life…my books.

  Thank you to Christine LePorte, my editor. And you’d think after nine books that I’d learn from my mistakes, but I’m stubborn. You’re awesome at making my books fabulous and readable.

  Thank you to Andrei Bat, my cover designer. I want to say this is my favorite cover you’ve done, but that would be wrong because now I can’t choose. Your genius overwhelms me, so I give up. I’m running off with the circus. Find me on a trapeze. I’ve gone on a tangent, I realize. I’m done.

  Thank you to my beta readers Colleen, Heidi, Melinda, Elizabeth, Kim. I had a horrible nightmare the other day. Yes, I was sleeping during the day. Don’t judge. I dreamed that you all wouldn’t beta read anymore. You’d cut me off. Said, “No more books, Sarah. Enough is an enough.” It was a bad dream. But then I woke up and bugged you all and things were good again. Thank you!

  Thank you to my ARC readers. I can’t do this without you. Really. You have no idea how scary it is when I send out those first few books. I want to go crawl into an overstuffed closet and pretend I’m a gnome not allowed to see sunlight. Oh yes, it gets that dramatic. But you all help me come out of my proverbial closet. Your early feedback keeps me coming back to the computer. You deserve gold bars. Not getting them from me, but that’s what you deserve. Colleen gets the first gold bar and she’ll probably be kind of old by then.

  Thank you to Dominic and Maja for running the Goodreads fan group. I have bookmarks! Like that means I’m officially an author! The slew of books doesn’t make me an author. When someone likes your books enough that they make you swag, that’s when you’ve made it. Thanks so much Dominic!

  Thank you to my family. To my oldest sister, Anne, who loves me more than she really should if she accurately remembered how bratty I used to be. To my youngest sister, Bea, who is such a ray of sunshine. To my parents, those I’m related to and those I’m connected to in other ways. Thank you to Grandma Linda. Thank you to all my supportive family members. Heart you.

  Thank you to my BOD family. Yes, I’ve decided to start calling you family. Where would I be without the readers and authors in that awesome group? Nowhere. That’s where. I’ve made the best friends in that group and I kind of want to get a bigger house so you all can come stay with me and we can stay up late watching scary movies and talking about books. Buy my books. And I will get this house, for you of course.

  Thank you to the bloggers who make every day easier with your wit, support and all around awesomeness. Seriously (I don’t think I’ve said that word yet), you all really give my books momentum.

  Thank you to Luke. You’re pretty awesome in your capacity to deal with my neurotic ways. Your support of my books has gone a long way. You kind of get this look about you when I say I’m going to write another book, but you always nod and give me an encouragement. That’s really cool.

  Thank you to Lydia. You were wearing a fairy costume when we went to the circus show that inspired this series. You’d worn it for Halloween. It was May when we went to the circus. And you sat on the front row with your wings and flowery bow and your face showed the most beautiful awe. That’s when I decided that I needed to write about the circus. I needed to bring that magic into my books. Always my muse, my sweet dear.

  Love,

  Sarah

  One-Twenty-Six Press.

  Released

  Sarah Noffke

  Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Noffke

  All rights reserved

  Copyeditor: Christine LePorte

  Cover Design: Andrei Bat

  All rights reserved. This was self-published by Sarah Noffke under One-Twenty-Six Press. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. If you are seeking permission send inquiry at

  http: www.sarahnoffke.com

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Summary: To some, death isn’t the worst case scen
ario. Living in an inescapable world ransacked by unspeakable evil, that’s much worse.

  Published in the United States by One-Twenty-Six Press

  ASIN: B01BFX0O74

  For Stephanie Colman.

  Because of your support.

  And because you scare me.

  RELEASED

  Chapter One

  The temperature in the miniature big top seemed to have dropped suddenly. Zuma’s teeth chattered against each other as she stared at Finley beside her. She hardly recognized him suddenly. Everything that made him him had shifted. His confidence had drained in a single second. The fierceness in his greenish-hazel eyes was somehow stolen by Knight’s presence. Now Finley stood in Titus’s office motionless beside her, his eyes on the dirt ground, his pulse beating wildly in his neck.

  Titus still had his head cradled in his hands, defeat oozing off his slumped shoulders. He reminded Zuma of an ostrich right then. The fact that Knight, the man responsible for Dave Raydon’s death, now owned the majority share of Vagabond Circus was the worst-case scenario. The man was dangerous and cruel and Titus was burying his head and pretending that it wasn’t happening.

  Jack, who sat in his wheelchair beside Zuma, hadn’t shifted his reaction since setting his eyes on Knight. Zuma could see, using her combat sense, that Jack was in pure shock. His mouth had fallen open, his pulse had slowed. And besides these observations, Zuma’s telepathy told her that the thoughts streaming through his head were mostly unintelligible. Broke me. Bad man. Not happening. Nowhere to go.

  Knight’s dark eyes looked all too pleased as they rested on Finley. He seemed to almost regard the boy with fondness, as if he’d missed him in the long three months since Finley’d escaped Knight’s compound. The man who stood before her wasn’t intimidating just because of all she knew of his cruelty or the fact that he, like Finley, could lock her out of his head. Knight’s very height made him appear like a monster to her. He was impossibly tall, maybe close to seven feet. His skin was the color of copy paper, and just as translucent. This made it easy to see the tiny expressions going on within him that told Zuma he was the only calm person inside the miniature big top.

  “Now Finley,” Knight began, saying his name with a certain degree of power and conviction, like he owned the word, “this is what’s going to hap—”

  “You’re the one who murdered Dave,” Zuma said, cutting him off and stepping forward, her eyes like sharp blades aiming to cut Knight.

  NO! she heard Finley say in her mind. He briefly had opened a telepathic link, but as soon as she spun to look at him she knew it was closed. And Finley’s eyes were still locked on the ground, a hollow expression in them. Nothing about him communicated the urgent message he’d just sent to her.

  Knight revolved his gaze on Zuma with a nonchalant expression. “I do believe my poor brother died from a heart attack. That’s what the coroner’s report stated,” he said, a smile in his voice, which reminded her of a bear’s growl.

  “We all know it was you,” she said, vibrating with a hostility she’d never known before. “You and your kid—”

  And then something else new happened to Zuma, cutting off her words. It wasn’t a telepathic message from Finley. It wasn’t a telepathic message from Titus or Jack, who hadn’t changed from their prior states. It felt as though a hammer had crashed onto the top of her head. Then blinding pain shot down her brain, all the way to the base of her skull, and radiated out until her entire head felt close to exploding. She clapped both her hands to her ears as the scream she couldn’t stop shot out of her mouth. Tears raced down her eyes and she fell to the ground. She’d buckled over from the pain. Lost the ability to hold herself up as the all-encompassing stabbing in her head stole her attention.

  Over her she felt someone move but her senses weren’t operating right. The pain was too great for her to do anything but convulse from the tremors now raking through her body, which was simultaneously shivering and sweating.

  “Oh, poor girl seems to have grown suddenly ill,” Knight said. “Titus, you should really take better care of your performers. They are your bread and butter, you know? Well, actually now they are mine, since I own Vagabond Circus.”

  Zuma’s teeth were locked down right against each other when the pain finally melted into something manageable. She felt a hand under her arm. It sought to pull her up from the ground where she lay. Shaking, she rose as Titus’s arm slid around her shoulder to steady the girl. “It’s all right,” he said in her ear, a new gentle tone to his usually serious voice. “I’ll help you.”

  She blinked the stars from her eyes to discover Finley was just staring at the ground, his hands lifeless by his side. At first she’d thought he was the one helping her, but he looked helpless now.

  “I’m taking you and Jack to see Fanny,” Titus said, his back to Knight, his eyes on Zuma. “Can you walk so that I can push Jack?”

  She slid her gaze to Jack, whose eyes on his pale face were bemused, like he was stuck in a nightmare. Zuma nodded. “Yes, let’s go,” she said, not daring to look directly at the man holding his arms across his chest with a satisfied expression written on his face. Knight, she knew, was responsible for the headache still making her feel close to exploding with pain. This was what he could do. This was how he maintained control. This had been why Finley had dared, for just a split second, to take down his shield to warn her. She knew it wouldn’t be safe for him to keep down the wall as it was the only thing that protected him from Knight. Zuma saw Knight in her peripheral, still not daring to look straight at the new owner of Vagabond Circus. Something in Zuma told her that she should never again look at him directly, if she wanted her head to remain pain free.

  Chapter Two

  A chill slid over the backs of Finley’s hands and inched over his arms, raising every hair as it took its path to his bunched up shoulders. He hadn’t followed Titus, Jack, and Zuma out of the office tent. He knew better. You didn’t leave Knight’s presence until he dismissed you unless you wanted to be punished at the next meeting.

  A morbid laugh almost spilled from Finley’s mouth as his current reality sunk in. How had he thought he could beat Knight? Finley stupidly had believed at the compound that he could teleport into Knight’s quarters and negotiate for Zuma’s happiness, for the curse to be lifted. Not only had he been unrealistic, but he’d been unwise not to see all this coming. He cursed himself for not seeing that Knight would come after Vagabond Circus. Of course that’s what he’d been after. That had been the other motivation behind Knight’s revenge. And now Knight had won. He’d killed Dave, taken his circus and with it any chance Finley ever had of freedom or happiness.

  Finley sensed the two figures approach behind him and he knew immediately that even if he wanted to teleport, he couldn’t. If he wanted to move at super speed, he couldn’t. Power-Stopper was behind him, in close enough proximity that she was robbing him of his dream travel skills. What Finley didn’t know was that Power-Stopper had graduated and now was named Gwendolyn. What Finley did know was that if he did try to run, Sebastian, the other person behind him, had every chance of catching him. Touching him. Killing him with a single hand clasped to his arm. As he had been his entire life, Finley was trapped. Again, he laughed to himself, this one also reeking of no humor. How did he think he could escape? Knight would never have let him get away for good. Now the only advantage Finley had was that Knight couldn’t get into his head to create mind-numbing headaches. But Knight didn’t know that, which was also in Finley’s advantage.

  “Tell me, Finley,” Knight said, his gravelly voice bringing that familiar dread to the acrobat’s mind. “You escaped from my compound. But I don’t understand why. I brought you into this world. I fed you. Taught you. Gave you everything you ever HAD!” Knight boomed on the last word. Finley knew from his peripheral that the older man’s face had suddenly blossomed into a fire engine red but he didn’t dare look at him directly. He knew better. “And you left me,” Knight said now in an
urgent whisper. Oddly he sounded almost hurt.

  “How long?” Finley said, his voice even quieter than Knight’s.

  “Excuse me?” Knight said.

  “How long do you plan to make me serve you, Master?” Finley asked, his chin nearly touching his chest.

  Knight’s loud laugh was soon joined by smaller ones behind Finley. “We are a family. Family is forever. What we do is a family business. And you have your name. You have a rank. Why would you want to leave that?”

  “That’s why I escaped. You were never going to let me go, Master,” Finley dared to say, all the while his eyes on the ground.

  “Where did you want to go when you left me?” Knight asked, but Finley knew he wasn’t supposed to answer. “You went to Vagabond Circus. I was about to take you there, as you can see now since I’m the majority owner. When are you going to see that I’m always a step ahead of you? I’ve always known what you wanted. And I’m now in the position to give my kids whatever they desire for serving me. Sebastian and Gwendolyn, tell me what you two want.”

  “Power,” Gwendolyn said without hesitation.

  “Power and freedom,” Sebastian said.

  “And guess who now has the privilege to run freely and do whatever they want at Vagabond Circus,” Knight said to the kids at Finley’s back.