Flesh Circus

Prioritize, Jill.

I took it out loud, so I could think it through better. “The attack on the hostage was voodoo. Perry’s supposed to stay and make sure the hostage doesn’t bite it. In any case, it’ll be nightfall before someone can try again.” One problem that doesn’t have to be solved immediately. I stared at the leather-bound books heaped on the table, breathed in deeply. Galina blew across the top of her tea. “I’ve got voodoo practitioners dropping like flies, spirits in people who shouldn’t have them—though if they’re believers, it changes the equation a little—and one of them came down with a bad case of zombie. And Zamba’s missing in action. She could quite possibly be needing protection, or she’s part of this. Either of which is equally unprepossessing. I’ve got Forensics collecting evidence, and Sullivan and the Badger doing some digging.”

It took me a couple more seconds to piece everything together.

“What’s up next?” Saul, as usual, gave the right question.

“Going home and getting cleaned up,” I decided. “Figuring out what to do about that kid. Then the next step.”

“Which is? And what kid?” Galina took a gulp of her tea. Maybe she needed it to wash the taste of history and dust out of her mouth.

“The kid who’s been following me around. And the next step is visiting some botanicas. Zamba wasn’t the only game in town, just the biggest one.” I pushed myself up to my feet and almost regretted it. Aches and pains twinged all over my body.

“An apprentice?” The Sanc looked at me like I’d just expressed a desire to take off my clothes and howl naked in the street. “When did this happen?”

“It hasn’t happened yet.” I pushed my chair in. The sunlight strengthened. It looked like another beautiful day. “Right now I just want him kept out of trouble.”

“That’s fu

For once, I observed the speed limit. Saul turned the radio’s volume knob and lit a Charvil, and dawn traffic was light. Santa Luz sometimes looks washed out, the sun bleaching buildings and dirt, the dust haze putting everything in soft focus. The greens are pale sage, the whites turn taupe and buff, and any dab of brightness gets covered with a thin film before long.

It’s different in the barrio. Bright blocks of primary color are a little more cheerful in the daylight—but a little more carnivorous at night. Even well-tended lawns look anemic under the first assault of morning light. It isn’t until the richness of twilight that things take on that mellow gold tinge, like waking up from a siesta with the world scrubbed clean and a little brighter.

It could just be me. But things seem tired in the morning. The day has risen, wearily, from the bowl of night. It’s when I get to go home, because the nasty things mostly stick to darkness to do their dirtiness.

They don’t call it the nightside for nothing.

And this morning seemed a little darker than usual. The windows were down and the radio was off, early coolness rising from the river and a promise of scorching later, but I thought I heard something else under the purring engine and the rushing air. The scar had been uncovered almost all night, and the sensory acuity was begi

A bright, cheery tune. That “Camptown Races” thing again, but with a darker edge. And the shadows were wrong this morning. Just by a millimeter or two, but they were at strange angles, and darker than the usual knife-sharp morning shadows. Gleams flickered through them—pairs of colorless gleams, low and slinking.

It wasn’t precisely against the rules for the Cirque’s dogs to be out ru

Stranger than someone with a grudge against both voodoo practitioners and hellbreed? Or stranger than Zamba disappearing and her entire household laid waste?

Stranger than Perry doing exactly what I tell him to?

The more I thought about it, the more my brain just went in circles. Even intuition wasn’t any help; it just flailed and threw up its hands. I was too tired, and getting dull-witted. Fatigue is a risk during cases like this.

“Goddammit,” I sighed, and Saul exhaled a long tobacco-scented sigh as well.

“Jill.” He sounded serious.

“Huh?” The thing that troubles me most, I decided, is not finding Zamba’s body. That slippery little bitch wouldn’t have let anyone kill her closest followers. That was her power base, the ones that ran herd on all the others.

Always assuming someone else had killed them.

“We need to talk.”

Oh, Christ. Not now. “What’s up?”

Seconds ticked by. I braked to a stop on Chesko. We’d turn and go up Lluvia Avenue. The engine hummed to itself, a familiar song.

The light turned green. Saul still said nothing. “What is it?” I prompted again, touching the accelerator. We moved smoothly forward, and no, it wasn’t my imagination. The colorless eyes in the shadows were following us.

Great.

“I love you.” He tossed the half-smoked Charvil away. It somersaulted in the slipstream and was gone. I checked the rearview. Just wonderful. Jesus. “You know that, right?”

“I do.” That’s not the problem. The problem is that you can’t stand to touch me now. And there’s a bigger problem right now, too. It has to do with those eyes in the shadows. The ones watching us right now.

Why now? Nighttime was their time.

There was another long pause, like he was waiting for me to say something. I kept checking the mirrors. Is this trouble? Why would they wait for daylight?

“Are you—” He tapped another Charvil up out of the pack. Held it in his long expressive fingers. I checked to make sure his seat belt was on. Of course it was. I pressed the accelerator a little harder. “Are you listening to me?”

“Of course I am.” The needle climbed, slowly but surely. The shadows were thickening, and I got a very bad feeling. “You said you love me. I said I know. You asked—”

“Jill. There’s something…” He twitched, looked out the window. “Is something following us?”

“Hang on.” My fingers caressed the gearshift. “Half a second.”

“Goddammit. There’s never a minute alone with you.”

“You’re alone with me right now.” The shadows were growing blacker, their crystalline eyes reflecting daylight stripped of all its warmth.

I mashed the accelerator. Tires chirped, and the Pontiac leapt forward obediently.

We roared down Lluvia, the shadows keeping pace. They circled as we bounced over the railroad tracks and down a long sun-drenched stretch of road. Here the sun hit a wall of warehouses dead-on to my left, and there wasn’t a shadow to be found—except the shadow of the Pontiac, ru

My warehouse was about ten blocks down, and even from here my smart eye could see the layers of protection on my walls waking in bursts of blue etheric flame.

Oh, holy shit. There’s a civilian in there. I sent him in myself.

I jammed the accelerator to the floor and prayed I wasn’t too late.