Flesh Circus

It was warm and still inside the Cirque. Balmy, even. The whole place was deserted. Maybe the girl in the booth had been an early-warning system, or maybe she didn’t get the memo that everyone was supposed to be gone. Nothing moved except unsecured tent flaps, and the calliope was muted and limping along through a rendition of the “Cuckoo Waltz,” wheezing and popping, straining like a locomotive going uphill.

Dusk was begi

A mouthful of fried-food scent, old grease gone rancid and clotted, brushed by, and the chickens made soft broody sounds. A single white feather drifted down from the cage. THROW A RING, a hand-lettered sign barked at me, the white-painted words surrounded by leering faces, WIN A PRIZE. The rings chattered softly against the angled spikes, and I could almost see the pegs used to make the spikes impossible to hit.

I penetrated the tangled maze, heading for the bigtop’s bulk. Its pe

The carnival-breath closed around me again, walling away the clean scent of the river. All of a sudden I smelled popcorn and white vinegar, corn dogs and healthy human sweat. The calliope lunged forward into “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and I remembered one of the few good times in my childhood, when my mother was between boyfriends. She had taken me to a Santa Luz Wheelwrights game, and we’d eaten hot dogs and cheered until we were hoarse.

Two weeks after that her new guy put her in the hospital and beat me to a pulp too. I was six.

Memory exploded, calliope music wrapping around me and tapping the inside of my skull, and I had another, deeper urge. To throw down the cage and the weapons, to retrace my steps and find that carousel, and to pick a horse. Any horse, it wouldn’t matter. Though I would like one with tawny sides and dark eyes, and I was sure there would be one there waiting just for me. I could climb up on its back and ride, and one by one every memory I didn’t want to keep would fall away like autumn leaves.

And if the horse shuddered and lurched then, if it grew fangs and the other horses clustered around with hellfire in their eyes and their teeth dripping, I would not care. I would willingly lie down, and it wouldn’t be rough wooden planks that I felt. It would be the killing cold of a snowbank, and I would be back in the snow before Mikhail pulled me out.

Not tonight, little one, he’d said. But even then I’d known it was only a matter of time.

I shivered. The chickens made more soft noises. The tremor passed through me, and the calliope missed a single note.

If I went and got on that carousel, though, I would forget Saul. I would forget the low inquiring purr he used when he was sleepy and I moved against him in the warm nest of our bed. I would forget the way his hair curled, and the depth of his dark eyes. I would forget his hands warm on me, and the soothing when I sobbed and he would hold me, murmuring into my hair.

Even our volcanic fights, when we screamed at each other and the ghosts of my past would rise behind each edged word. Or the silence in Hutch’s bookshop when I realized he was gone, most probably for good, because I didn’t deserve him.

Remembering him would be a double-edged pleasure. But it was one I would hold to me in the dead watches of the night, when I was patrolling and my city was a collection of black and gray. Filth in its corners and the cries of i

If I dropped what I was holding and went to the carousel, who would even try to fight for them? And who would remember Saul the way I did?

Trembling had me in its grip like a dog shaking a favorite chew toy. Sweat slicked my skin, ran down the cha

The sun was sinking. How long had I been standing here?

Silver chimed as I shook my head, the charms clattering against each other. My apprentice-ring popped a spark, and the chickens took exception to that. I let out a harsh breath, my pulse hammering like I’d just run a hard mile. Feathers drifted to the ground, and I noticed the dust had swirled around me, streaks against my leather pants up to my thighs.

As if something had been rubbing against my legs.

The calliope surged again, but I couldn’t identify the tune and it didn’t pluck at me. It sounded dissatisfied. I took an experimental step forward, and the chickens calmed down. More thunder sounded, closer now. I checked the deepening bruise of the sky, found no clouds.

I understood more about the Cirque now. Much, much more than I ever wanted to.

My legs stopped trembling after another couple of steps. I swallowed a horrible bitter taste and almost choked on the regret and unsteady anger.

The bigtop wasn’t far. I somehow made my weary legs go faster, and I walked toward it with my head held high.

Chapter Twenty-eight

There was no guard at the door—just a red velvet rope I felt okay stepping over, since its arc almost dragged the strip of faded Astroturf leading into the maw. The plague-carrier’s straight wooden chair was set to one side, flies buzzing around its encrusted surface. My coat whispered, and thunder growled again in the distance.

First impression: soaring space. The place was huge. At the far end was a collection of gleams and puffs of green vapor, and the back of my neck chilled when I realized it was the calliope, two stories high and belching lime-green steam. It wasn’t any louder, certainly not loud enough to be heard all through the Cirque.

Next impression: empty seats, their wooden surfaces polished by God knew how many rear ends and backs, their arms carved. Some had straps lying open, others hungry metal hoops that clicked open and shut in time with the music, right where they could close over wrists and ankles. Some of the seats flipped up and down in tentative jerks.

Three knee-high wooden rings held vast circles of stained sawdust. The two smaller, flanking circles held all sorts of weird metal cages and implements, some crusted with nameless fluids, others gleaming dully. The light came from nowhere, and rippled on the underside of the canvas like reflections from a pond’s unquiet, scum-laced surface.

The biggest, central ring was mostly bare. Dark spatters and drips spoke in their own tongueless language—that’s high-impact splatter, and right there is arterial spray, and that’s where someone was bludgeoned. I forced myself to look away.