Flesh Circus

Set in the exact middle of the middle ring was a plain metal bedstead with a thin dun mattress that looked older than I felt. The hostage lay, curled into a fetal position, his narrow shadowed back to me. He was still wearing the same ratty boxers, and the collar glinted under his lank hair.

I stepped over the border of the ring, candystriped plywood faded and chipped this close up. As soon as I did, light glared, and I almost threw myself into a fighting crouch before I realized it was a spot from high up, and it highlighted the Ringmaster, standing at the other end of the circle. His face was a cadaver’s leer, and he capered a little like a tired old horse, his red velvet coat glaring and the top hat sending back jets of dispirited aqueous light. His cane whirled once like a propeller, the green crystal globe humming as it clove thick air.

He danced again, his jodhpurs flapping and the boots landing hard on springy sawdust. Then he halted, jabbed the cane at me, and hissed.

I set the chickens down. They had gone deathly quiet, and the cage shook slightly. I didn’t blame them a bit. The shadows in here leapt and swirled, but I didn’t see any colorless crystal eyes or lean leaping forms. Even my blue eye was having trouble with the shifting shadows, the ether thick as pea soup.

But just because I didn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there. And Perry had to be around here somewhere too.

The calliope quieted slightly, faint cheery music with an undertone of ripping flesh and splintered bone. I did my best to tune it out.

“Come on in and step right up, ladies and gentlemen! See the hunter come into the ring! Yessir it’s a sight for the ages, and tonight’s show will be the one to end all shows! Hurry, hurry, find your seats—”

“Shut up.” My yell sliced right through his, and the scar woke to painful, agonized life, sending a hot bolt up my right arm. “And get out of the fucking ring.”

“This is the seat of our power.” All the bluster was gone. His eyes were sheets of orange fire, fat drops sizzling down his thin cheeks. He even wore stained white gloves, and the calliope agreed with him, singing along. It followed his breathing, a deep hitch whenever he sucked at the air to fuel that voice. “You heard the siren song, didn’t you?”

Goddamn hellbreed. Tell me again why I’m helping you. “Henri.” I sounded like a teacher addressing a recalcitrant third-grader, but it was just the exhaustion. “If you don’t fucking get out of this ring I’m going to blow your head off.”

The cane whirled again, once. His lips peeled back, and the faint lines ru

No, they were all shark, and all pointed at me.

But I stood my ground, next to the chickens in their wire cage, fine white feathers now drifting upward on a random draft of air. Killing him and burning this entire horrorshow to the ground had a certain appeal.

But that would ruin the plan, Jill.

A wall of warm air flapped through the entrance, the canvas straining and ropes suddenly creaking. The shadows turned darker, and I knew instinctively that the sun had touched the horizon. Not long now.

“As you like.” The Ringmaster capered back. “For now.”

I picked up the cage and matched him step for step, forward as he retreated. By the time I reached the bed in the center, Henri de Zamba was a good twenty feet away toward another pair of flaps, a stage entrance. More spotlights buzzed into life, glaring circles of leprous white stabbing the seats. A shifting crowd murmur filled the tent. I half expected to see people shuffling in, their faces blank with the expectation of entertainment. This light would bleach them out, turn them into ghosts, and the calliope would murmur like it was murmuring now.

Another rattle of thunder sounded. I could barely hear it over the music.

I set the cage down. Dug in the black canvas bag. The white novenas in their glass sheaths went at the cardinal points, unlit. I circled around the bed and its deathly-still occupant, leaving a trickle of cornmeal. I made the circle as perfect as I could, etheric force bleeding out from the fingers of my right hand to guide it and keep it solid. The particles were unearthly yellow, like the sunlight even now bleeding away over the edge of the world.

The circle had to be big enough to contain the bed and another smaller circle traced at the foot. This one I tried not to hurry over, but the shadows in here were getting stronger. How long had I stood listening to the calliope and thinking about the carousel?

Just do it, Jill. Worry later.

The veve took shape, the spout of the plastic bottle of meal jittering a little as force ran smoothly through my hand. Alien curves unreeled, and the second smaller circle to one side grew almost without me noticing it. Cornmeal shifted and hissed over the sound of the calliope, and the lines twitched and tweaked until they were satisfied. The meal ran out, but the symbol completed itself out of nowhere.

A shiver walked down my spine again, salt crust from the cold sweat drying itched. Great.

The shadows were wine-dark now, well on their way to achieving solidity. Ikaros stirred and the Ringmaster hissed again.

Move it along, woman! The cigars almost fell out of my shaking hands, rolling in their sheaths. I tipped Florida water out, a sweet orange breath overriding the reek of animals and sawdust. When I looked next, the cigars had arranged themselves near each veve, short bristling hairs atop the circles.

The Ringmaster hissed again. I set the bottle of Barbancourt rum down, pulled the bag strap over my head, and reached down into its depths, bringing up a plastic bag of copper chloride.

“I do not recognize this sorcery.” The Ringmaster paced closer to the edge of the containing circle. “I do not trust you.”

“That makes us about even.” I tipped all the copper chloride I could hold into my left hand. “You’re the first one I’m going to kill if this doesn’t work out. Just remember that.”

The world held its breath. I pitched the bag and scooped up the rum, just in time. The long dusk exhale ended, and I felt the end of sunset all the way down to my bones.

I can always feel it. Sunset always wakes me up like five shots of espresso and a bullet whizzing past. I swear I can feel the deep breath Santa Luz takes at the moment of dawn or dusk, when the tide shifts and another day or night rises from the ashes of whatever preceded it.

The Ringmaster threw back his head and let out an eerie cry, the calliope pausing and thundering out every note it was capable of. The green vapor billowed, and faces appeared in it, long screaming gaunt ghostly faces. Their eyes burned orange, just like the Ringmaster’s—

— and Ikaros, almost naked on his stained mattress, howled and went into seizure. His thin body bowed up into a hoop, and the collar bloomed with blue sparks as a point of violent green appeared up over the circle. It dilated, became a disc, and there was a pattering sound as roaches fell out of its glare and somehow avoided the circle I’d drawn. They landed in the sawdust and exploded in tiny gobbets of slime. The chickens made high-pitched, frantic sounds suddenly cut off in midsquawk. Their heads had been lopped cleanly off, blood briefly spraying in high-tension arcs.

Which was a good sign, if I was looking for one.

Time’s up.

The cap on the rum spun off, I took a gulp, and threw the copper chloride over Ikaros. It flashed into sparks of blue flame, the cornmeal spat points of a deeper-blue static, and I sprayed the rum—

— just as the Ringmaster launched himself over the circle’s barrier and hit me full-on, bones snapping as I flew into the seats and the hostage screamed a curlew cry.