Flesh Circus

“I think we should come to an agreement.”

“You’re about ten seconds away from me blowing another hole in your head. What you think doesn’t matter.”

His eyes glowed. A small flicker between his parted lips was his wet cherry-red tongue, gleaming in the dimness. “Not even if I’m the one keeping you alive? The performers here are restive, and the Ringmaster is recovering from a nasty bout of green smoke and cockroaches. Even Traders are so fragile.”

Even you, he probably meant.

I am not a Trader. I’m a hunter. Don’t forget that difference, Perry. “Five seconds.” I stared at the air over his head. “And counting.”

He sighed, spread his hands… and ducked out into the sunlight again, the shiver rippling through his linen suit as well as his skin as the sun, that great enemy of all darkness, touched him.

I hoped it hurt. I hoped every fucking second he spent out in the daylight hurt him.

A straight-backed wooden chair lay flung on the floor, soaked in rotting hellbreed ichor. There was something odd—a long hank of dead-black hair, tangled up in the muck. A few moments more of examination proved it to be a wig, with a kerchief tangled in it. The kerchief had once been red, and was now rotting as the acid ate at it. The wig’s fake hair was stronger stuff, bubbling slightly as it was… digested.

“Ugh.” I glanced up. She was probably at the table when it started.

Greasy antique playing cards scattered across the table. Five of spades, ace of spades, queen of spades, all spackled with steaming liquid rot and covered in teensy roach tracks. The crystal-ball shards vibrated slightly, and something lay tangled under the knife-sharp splinters. Even the base of twisted dull metal the crystal ball must have rested on was torn up, sharp jagged edges still quivering with distress.

The violence of this attack was far and away the worst. It looked like the hellbreed had literally exploded in chunks. Even with all the sacrifice Zamba had performed at her house—the killing of her closest followers—this was superlative.

Which meant Mama Zamba must’ve had some link to Moragh the fortuneteller. Something physical, the last piece of the puzzle.

Come on. Something has to be here. I was about to start tearing the tent apart when a round silvery glimmer caught my eye.

I crouched, the balls of my feet slipping slightly in greasy, bubbling gunk. Each piece of silver I wore quivered with blue light, blessing reacting with contamination.

“Bingo,” I whispered. I shook a piece of fabric out of my pocket—a red banda

The pocket watch dangled, gunk dripping off it. Steam curled away from its steel curve. Not silver, and not gold, but still antique. “Blessed Maria.” The words were numb on my lips, but the hellbreed ichor cringed, turning inert and dripping free. “Watch over us si

Belief behind words neutralizes evil, one of the oldest tricks in the book.

I popped the case free. The watch had stopped at 11:59, and there was no way of knowing, but I would bet it was P.M. A plain face, with the Greek letter Omega right under the 12. The crystal wasn’t cracked, and engraved on the outer edge of the front casing were three worn-down letters.

SRG. Samuel Gregory. I wondered what the “R” stood for.

There wasn’t much about this case that I could feel good about. But I felt good about this, even with my coat hanging in hellbreed muck and my heart breaking inside my ribs.

“Gotcha,” I said softly. “Gotcha, you bitch.”

I closed the watch up and stowed it in my pocket. Stood, my knees creaking, and surveyed the rest of the tent. A shadow fell across the flap and I whirled, hand to a gun.

It was the stuttering barker, Troy. His face twisted up, hard red flush high on his cheekbones. His mouth was a thin line, and his hair was mussed.

He held a bottle of Barbancourt rum. “H-h-h-here.” The single syllable strangled itself on the way out of his mouth. “I-it w-was H-H-Helene’s.”

“Well, it’s going to help catch her killer.” I took the bottle, and he dug in his pocket. Came up with a much-wrinkled paper bag. I pointed. It seemed easier than making him talk. “Cornmeal?”

He contented himself with a nod and handed it over. “A-are y-you r-really g-g-g-going to—”

“I’m really going to fuck up Helene’s killer, Troy.” Jesus. I’m reassuring a Trader. “How’s Ikaros?”

His thin shoulders came up, dropped. His eyes glittered with the flat shine of the dusted, and he seemed not to notice the stink filling the tent. The red suspenders were even more hopelessly frayed, and his white shirt looked wilted. “Th-th-they s-s-say you’re n-not g-g-g-going to d-do an-ny-nything. Th-that—”

God, it was like pulling nails out of stubborn wood, listening to him talk. “I don’t care what they say. I’m just interested in getting this over with. Get out of here.”

His lip curled for a bare moment before turning into a thin bloodless line again, and he retreated out into the glare. I was left holding the rumpled bag of cornmeal and a half-full bottle of Barbancourt, standing in the middle of a rotting smear of hellbreed and staring at the shards of a crystal ball, clutching a pocket watch that ran with blue light under the surface of its steel casing.

I set the rum and the bag of cornmeal on one of the few unsullied spots on the table, yanked the cup out of my pocket. The watch fit inside, and when I drew the straight razor out and slid it into the cup the blue light didn’t just lurk below the surface. It fizzed over, falling in a cascade of sparks. A shiver walked down my spine again.

“Oh yes.” I tilted the cup, watching the blue light paint the fraying velvet of the walls, and the bottle of rum trembled against the tabletop. “I’ve got you now, Zamba.”

So much of sorcery is pure will. You don’t really have to do a damn thing except declare, This is the way the world is. People do it every day. The record plays just under the surface of their conscious minds, all those assumptions they make.

That’s just the way it goes. Some things won’t ever change.

It’s also the principle that lets hellbreed, Sorrows, Middle Way adepts, and so many others slip through the cracks. People fear muggers or tax audits. They don’t fear the things that crouch in the crevices, staring up with glowing eyes that don’t obey human geometry.

Oh, sure, people subconsciously cringe away from a full-fledged ’breed or shiver when an arkeus passes close enough to touch. But they won’t really look. They don’t want to see.

And they will hurry away, if they can. Lock their car doors and forget.

Whatever weird confluence of genetics and opportunity makes a hunter, one thing is paramount: the ability to look steadily at the weirdness and the filth. The refusal to look away.

And add to that the stubbor

It’s just centimeters away from the pride that hellbreed think gives them the right to murder, rape, pillage, distort, and batten on the helpless.

But those centimeters count.

The straight razor rattled in the blue enamel cup. The pocket watch did too, blue sparks popping and fizzing as I held it in front of me, arms extended, knuckles and tendons standing up with the effort of keeping the wildly agitated metal still.