Flesh Circus

“Huh.” I looked closer, my smart eye dry and buzzing.

“I hate it when you say that,” Avery muttered.

Lingering cheesecloth veils hung around him, pulsing every time he took a breath. It looked like he was fighting free of the contamination—though contamination isn’t the right word when it comes to voodoo or any of her cousins. He was definitely struggling with the mental and emotional damage done by having something inhuman use your body as a hotel room—or getting that something violently evicted.

It didn’t look like the regular event of a loa or orisha “riding a horse.” The bargains that priests and priestesses make with those spirits are well-defined on both sides, and initiation into the secrets of any voodoo-esque branch carries a protection against unwanted possession as well as methods of doing it safely.

That is, if any possession can be called “safe.”

They are jealous of their followers, those spirits. I learned as much doing a residency, working the voodoo beat in New Orleans. Now that had been an education. Just goes to show there’s always something more you can learn, even as a hunter.

I slid the porthole closed, locked it. “Has he eaten anything?”

Avery shook his sleek dark head. “Nothing yet. I slide the food in, he doesn’t touch it.”

I don’t like this. I restrained the urge to flip through the file again. “Okay. I’m going to ask some questions. Hopefully I—” My pager buzzed, I broke off and dug for it. “Jesus. Never rains but it pours.”

“You say that a lot. I’ll just keep feeding him, then.”

“Be careful. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, and until I am I don’t want him going anywhere. Okay?” I checked the pager. Galina, again. Which meant I had to get over there—it wasn’t like her to buzz right after I’d visited her unless something was going on. Usually she’ll just wait for me to drop by every couple of weeks, figuring I have other irons in the fire.

“Okay. Say hi to Saul for me, will you?”

“I will.” I pocketed my pager, took another long look at the closed door holding a mystery behind it, shook my head, and turned on my heel. “Say hi to Eva for us.”

He was blushing. He should’ve known I wouldn’t leave without twitting him. “Go fuck yourself, Kismet.”

I laughed and was on my way, pushing up the stairs lightly with each foot. Outside the jail, the Pontiac was parked in a fire lane, Saul leaning against the front left quarter-panel and smoking. The streetlamp shine of just-past-dark was kind, and I stopped on the steps for a moment, just taking a good look at him.

Tall, dark man, silver in his short black hair, jeans and combat boots and a black T-shirt. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, and almost too delicious to be real. Weres are generally striking if not beautiful. They just look more finished than regular humans.

He was studying the street, presenting me with a three-quarter profile hard-edged as a statue. There were dark circles under his eyes, I noticed, and his mouth was drawn tight. And his shoulders were hunched in a way I’d never seen before.

He looked tired. Well, his mom just died. Leave it alone, Jill. Be supportive.

My pager buzzed again, and I fished it out.

Galina, again. A chill touched my nape. “Fuckity.”

That got Saul’s attention. He ditched his cigarette, a long, thin stream of smoke following its arc into the gutter. “What’s up?”

“Galina’s buzzing. Twice. I should get over there. Avery says hi, by the way. I think he and Eva are dating.” I waited for him to give me a quick smile, waited for his eyebrow to quirk.

Instead, his mouth turned even thi

He really did look tired. My fingers tightened on the manila folder, making it creak and crackle slightly. “I can drop you off at home.”

That earned me a look sharp enough to break a window. “You don’t want me along?”

What? “Of course I do. You just look a little under the weather, that’s all.” You look tired, and I don’t blame you.

He didn’t scowl, but it was close. “I’m fine.” He slid along the side of the car, opened his door, and dropped in as my pager sounded again.

Goddammit. I stalked around the front, popped the driver’s door, and got in, tossing the file in the backseat. I’d go over it after we found out what was going down at Galina’s. “Saul—”

“I’m fine.” He lit another Charvil. “If that’s Galina we’d better hurry.”

“You’re actually telling me to drive fast?”

He grabbed for the seat belt as I twisted the key. The Pontiac purred into life. “Christ, when do you not drive fast, kitten?”

When indeed. I dropped the Pontiac into gear. My pager buzzed again, and I floored it while Saul was still trying to get his seat belt on.

Chapter Six

Galina’s shop windows shone with featureless yellow light behind paper-thin blinds. The telephone poles marching alongside the road in this part of town were festooned with paper. As I cut the engine, looking at the one right next to the car, I saw a huge painted poster stapled over the weathered drift of concert a

Come To The Circus! Art Deco flowers festooned the edges, and in the middle was a gri

There was no address. Of course, the people who wanted to would find it. That’s the way it works.

My mouth went dry. “Jeez.”

Saul barely gave it a glance. “Trashy.” He opened his door, flicking his Charvil into the gutter.

A shadow moved in the plate-glass front of the shop across the street. I eyed it for a few moments, took my time opening my door. Blue fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror rocked slowly to a halt—Galina’s gift, a replacement for the red ones that had gone up in flames with my Impala.

The thought still pissed me off. I’d nursed that car back into shape from a rusted hulk in a wrecking yard. All that work and effort gone in a few heartbeats, dying in the barrio.

Saul hadn’t asked any questions when I picked him up from the train station in the Pontiac. I was glad about that.

The shadow in Galina’s window moved again. I slid out of the car, slammed my door, and eased a gun free of the holster. Saul had paused at the rear of the car, his head up, hot wind touching his hip-length leather jacket and making the fringe move a little. His dark eyes flicked to the gun in my hand, and he straightened infinitesimally before stepping out into the road.

He followed two steps behind and to my left, carefully out of the way but close enough if I should need him. The skin between my shoulder blades twitched a little when I crossed the centerline—it hadn’t been so long ago that I’d been right in the middle of the street and got chewed up by an assault rifle. They’d used copper-jacketed lead, the dumb bu

Everyone skipping and scrambling to kill me, when if they’d just left me alone they could have quietly had their bioweapon and their higher-up from Hell stepping through to make my entire city—hell, probably the entire country—a wasteland before I could stop them. There wouldn’t have been a damn thing I could do about it. I’d only been poking around the suicide of Monty’s old partner, not looking for a serious dose of lead poisoning or a firebombed car.

I wasn’t far enough away from that case yet for my body to forget. A prickle of chill touched the curve of my lower back.

The body remembers, and the body knows. You can override that knowing with enough training, but it’s still never pleasant.