Flesh Circus

“Yes, my dear?” Silky-smooth, but he didn’t look at me.

“Shut the fuck up.” I inhaled deeply, wished I hadn’t. Under the reek of sex, tobacco, and marijuana lay the rusted-copper tang of blood and a breath of… what was that?

Cigar smoke. Candy. And rum. It was very faint, fading even as I inhaled deeply again, trying to catch another whiff. Now that’s interesting.

“I was only asking.” Perry eased into the tent, his lip curling. “Such petty games played here.”

“As opposed to the ones played out at the Monde?” It was my turn to inquire sweetly. “If you’re not going to be helpful, you can wait outside.”

His tongue flickered over white teeth, a flash of wet cherry-red. “I can be singularly helpful, for your sake.”

Oh, I’ll just bet. “Good. You’re going to stay here and keep an eye on the hostage. I’ve got other business tonight.”

“I might have business too.”

The scar turned hot, and a spill of poisonous delight threaded up my arm. “Too bad. Now that you’ve seen the crime scene, you can run along.”

“Dismissed by my lady.” He sighed, but the scar tweaked.

So he was getting to the point of pulling my chain, was he? Hellbreed hate being outfoxed, and they hate being outfoxed by their own cleverness even more. If Perry hadn’t been so eager to use a measure of what he thought was his newfound psychological leverage on me, he wouldn’t have lost every bit of his hold—including the ironclad agreement to have me in every month. My time for his power; that had been the deal—and when he welshed, it was his power for nothing.

Except I had to step carefully, or I would get trapped again. And he would make me pay for every insult I offered him.

Still, that wasn’t a reason not to twit him while I could. And I wanted him out of the way for the next ten minutes. The stuttering Trader looked ready to die from fright, and couldn’t get out a coherent sentence.

I understood. I didn’t sympathize, but I completely understood.

“I’m not your lady or your hunter, Pericles. I’m the hunter of Santa Luz and I’m telling you to keep a close watch on the Ringmaster and that hostage. You’re responsible for their good behavior. And not so incidentally, for the hostage’s continued survival.” I was apparently staring at the stain on the stage. My attention was all on him, though. The Trader crouched with his face level to the planking, peeping up at the red satin pillows like a kid looking through the banister for Santa Claus. “Now be a good little hellspawn and run along.”

The air tightened, and I wondered if this was going to be the time that Perry pushed it. It was getting more and more likely the longer this went on.

But apparently, he was just as invested in keeping the Cirque under wraps as I was. I was banking on that. So often, I was banking on the flimsiest things to keep him from seriously fucking around with me.

It is the woman, has the advantage in situations like this, milaya. You just remember that. Mikhail’s voice, a memory equal parts pleasure and pain.

I was hoping, like always, that it was true.

“Very well,” Perry finally said. “Happy hunting, my dear. I expect this… situation… to be resolved shortly.”

“The longer you stand here jawing, the less likely that is.” Unless you’ve got some elegant little finger in this pie, which is very possible. I’m not ruling anything out.

But still… voodoo. The one thing pretty much no hellbreed would be involved in.

Perry’s presence leached out of the room slowly, like an invisible heavy gas. The Trader still crouched, peering up at the stage, and I sighed.

“So, this Helene. Did she have any enemies?” I was fully aware of the irony of the question.

“O-only th-the u-usual.” The stammer did get better with Perry out of the room. The ferret-faced blond shot me a glance that could have meant anything. “You’re n-not going to l-look for whoever d-d-did this.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I am.” I studied the stage again, and suddenly saw how Helene probably lay down—in a way guaranteed to show off the goods to the maximum number of people in the room. “Was she between showings? In here alone?”

“N-no. Th-there were r-rubes. Not very m-many.” He was damn near peppy with Perry out of the picture, and I suddenly thought I liked him better when he was scared. The self-serving little weasel glint in Trader eyes always makes me want to reach for a weapon.

It’s that same weasel glint I used to see in my mother’s eyes when one of her boyfriends was on the rampage. A cold calculation—how much can I get? How can I use something else to get out of this? What’s in it for me?

“Sh-she was just a ’b-b-breed. I know what y-you h-hunters are l-like.”

You do, huh? Well. That’s nice. “Is that so.” There were tiny pinpricks dotting out from the stain in random twin loops—cockroach tracks. They stopped cold about two feet from the body.

Little skittering roach-tracks. Did they vanish in a puff of green smoke too?

“So what did the… the rubes see? Any of them still around?” Did any of them get home safe, either?

“D-d-don’t kn-know. Was b-busy trying to g-get the b-b-b-bugs—” His face flushed. “Bugs. Away.”

“Did the bugs do that?” I pointed at the stain. “Was she making any sound? Choking?”

“S-screaming. And th-they r-ripped h-her ap-p-part. N-n-not m-much l-left.”

I questioned him a little more, but he either knew nothing or covered it really well. The way he crouched right next to the stage was u

There may have been a time when I might’ve decided to let that pass. But if the hostage ended up biting it… it just didn’t bear thinking about. The Cirque would explode out of its boundaries, and I’d have a hell of a time getting things back under control again.

Get it, Jill? A Hell of a time? Arf arf.

Whoever was doing this probably had a beef with hellbreed or the right idea. But they were going about it in exactly the wrong way.

Chapter Ten

Thank God,” Eva said as I muscled up through the attic trapdoor, her dark eyes widening with relief.

She says that every time I show up. It’s kind of nice to hear.

She nodded at Saul, her tiny gold ball earrings flashing. She used to wear hoops until they almost got torn off her head five times in a row during exorcisms.

She’s stubborn like that.

Eva’s black bangs were disarranged, and her suit jacket was torn. It hadn’t been any trick finding her here—the victim was still making enough noise to be heard on the street outside. Fortunately (or not), here at the edge of the barrio nobody paid much attention. It wasn’t like her to look so mussed, though. She’s usually neat as a pin. While Avery, Wallace, and Benito often go in guns blazing, Eva depends more on outsmarting and leverage.

When you’re short even compared to me, I guess that’s the better way to go. Of course, Mikhail probably trained me because I tend to go in guns blazin’ too. Call it a character quirk.

Hey, when you’ve got a hellbreed mark, firepower, and a serious rage problem, leverage and tact lose a lot of their charm.

“What the hell do you have here?” I looked past her and saw something familiar—a human shape on a pair of stacked mattresses, writhing around under a sausage-casing of leather restraints. And babbling in something that sounded very familiar, too—not the grumbling of töng, but a lyrical rolling song.

“Guy’s wife called 911, said he was going weird. The black-and-whites called me in, since he was holed up in the attic and chanting.”

“It wasn’t Jughead Va