Flesh Circus

He was still staring at my hands. His eyes unfocused, brown irises sheened over as if with cataracts, a thin gray film spilling over his gaze. The air tightened, a breeze from nowhere riffling the papers on his desk, touching the leather-clad spines, and fingering the sheer curtains over the French doors looking onto the backyard’s wide green expanse.

I braced myself.

When he spoke next, it was a different voice. His mouth moved, but the sound came from elsewhere, a mellow deep baritone crackling at the edges. “Ay, mi sobrina. Bienvenidos a mi casa.”

The goose bumps rose again, hot this time instead of cold. My hair stirred, the silver chimes shifting, and my blue eye caught little dark shapes moving through the charged, heavy atmosphere that had suddenly settled inside the study. “Buenos días, señor. Muchas gracias por su atencion.”

Hey, it never hurts to be polite.

Melendez’s face worked itself like rubber, compressing and stretching. His mouth worked wetly. “You come here seeking knowledge, eh? What you give to Papa Chango?”

How about I don’t rip you out of your follower there? How about I leave this place standing instead of burned down as a lesson in not fucking with me? I kept control of my temper, but just barely. It was getting harder and harder. “You wouldn’t ask me if you didn’t have something in mind already.”

“Es verdad. Me and the Twins, we have a wager. They think their little puta is a match for the devils and for you. She pay them well, she always have.”

I’ll bet she does. There’s all sorts of death lately she’s been paying them with. “Payment isn’t everything. There’s more at stake here than just revenge. What does Arthur Gregory want?”

“I tell you what, bruja. Mi hijo here, he tell you all he know. In return, you owe me una bala. He lie, or he tell you nothing useful—and you put that bala through his cabeza, eh?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Why should I strike a bargain with you?”

The thing inhabiting Melendez’s body laughed, a chortle that struck every exposed, shivering surface and blew my hair back. I smelled ozone, and rum. And cigar smoke, drifting across my sensitive nose. My eyes stung, smart and dumb alike.

“Because otherwise, mi sobrina, you ain’t never go

It chuckled, moving Melendez’s lips like ripples on the surface of a pond. “So what you say, bruja grande de Santa Luz? Una bala, por la razon, for the great por que.”

Jesus Christ. It always comes down to this, doesn’t it. What part of myself am I willing to mortgage to get this case over and dealt with? “Deal.” The word was ash in my mouth. Cigar ash. “But if you double-deal me, señor, this caballo is wormfood and you’re on the outs within the borders of my city.”

A good threat. I couldn’t bar a loa from the city, of course—but I could make it hell on his followers. If I had to.

If it became necessary.

It laughed again. Chuckled long and hard, Melendez’s hands jerking like brown paper puppets on strings. “We like you, bruja. Mi hermano Ogoun and me, we got a wager on you too. We be watching.”

And just like that, it winked out. Melendez sagged, coughing, in his chair. A long jet of smoke spluttered through his lips, and his face hit the desktop with a solid thump.

It looked painful. He coughed, and more smoke billowed up. I swallowed a sarcastic little laugh. If this turns into a case of spontaneous combustion, we’re going to have a problem.

Yeah, just add it to all my other problems. I stayed where I was as Melendez hacked, and the smoke gradually thi

When his bloodshot eyes swiveled up and he pushed himself upright, I sank my weight into my back foot, prepared to go any direction.

“Kismet.” He coughed again, but without the smoke.

“Melendez.” I sank down, coiling into myself like a spring. Just in case.

“I need a beer,” he muttered. “Then I tell you todo.”

“Sounds good.” I didn’t relax. “Does Chango smoke every time he rides you?”

“Chingada, no.” Amazingly enough, the round little man laughed. “Only when he mad, bruja. Only when he really fucking mad.”

Chapter Twenty-three

I left his quiet little house a half hour later. I paused only once, standing on his threshold, to look back at the courtyard and the dry fountain. I was cold, and not even the white-yellow eye of the sun could warm me.

It was the damndest thing, but the Cirque’s dogs didn’t come up Melendez’s driveway. Instead, they clustered up and down the street, each piece of knife-edged morning shadow full of writhing slender shapes and winking colorless-glowing eyes.

The Pontiac’s door slammed and I stared at the steering wheel. Measured off a slice of it between my index fingers, bitten-down nails ragged, my apprentice-ring gleaming on my left third finger. Tendons stood out on the back of my scrawny hands, calloused from fighting and sparring, capable work-roughened hands.

Jesus.

When all else fails and you’re looking at a huge clusterfuck, sometimes you just need a moment to sit and collect yourself before you start ru

What came next?

The Cirque. Get out there and take a look at the newest body. Chances are you’ll be able to triangulate her position from the traces, now that you know what she’s doing and how they’re linked. If you can get to her before she gets what she wants—

But there was another consideration. If Mama Zamba, nee Arthur Gregory, was out for vengeance against the Cirque, she had a right. Sloane had been working the case, which meant it fell to me to tie up loose ends and finish the job.

Helene took the brother in, and the fortuneteller—Moragh—had something to do with it. The Ringmaster too. That’s who Zamba blames, at least. Reasonable as far as I can see.

But what about Ikaros? Why does she want to kill the hostage?

I reached over, grabbed Sloane’s file from the passenger seat. Saul should have been there with me. He would be looking at me right now, his head tilted slightly and his eyes soft and deep.

The pain hit me then, gulleywide sideways. I blinked back the tears rising hot and vicious. Shut up, I told myself. Shut up and take it. You can take this.

I hadn’t really thought he would leave me. Well, I had; it was the song under every thought of him, the fear under every kiss. But I’d hoped.

That great human drug, hope. It makes fools of everyone, even tough-ass hunters. And I was so tired. When was the last time I’d slept?

“Goddammit,” I said to the glaring-hot dash, the burning steering wheel, the flood of sunlight bleaching everything colorless-pale. “Do your job, Jill.”

It was left to me. It was always left to me. That’s what a hunter is—the last hope of the desperate, the last best line of defense against Hell’s tide. No matter what shit was going on in my personal life, it was up to me to see that the entire fucking house of cards didn’t fall.

My pager buzzed again. The goddamn thing just would not shut up. I fished it out with my free hand, glanced at it, and swore.

Perry, again. Which could only mean trouble.

I flipped the file open. Past the picture of Arthur Gregory’s young, heartbreaking smile to the précis of the case.