Circus of the Damned

I slid into the car and yelled, “Drive, drive, drive!”

Larry peeled out in a spray of gravel. The car fishtailed, headlights swaying crazily. “Don’t wrap us around a tree, Larry.”

His eyes flicked to me. “Sorry.” The car slowed from stomach-turning speed to grab-the-door-handle-and-hold-on speed. We were staying between the trees; that was something.

The headlights bounced off trees; tombstones flashed white. The car skidded around a curve, gravel spitting. A man stood framed in the middle of the road. Jeremy Ruebens of Humans First stood pale and shining in the lights. He stood in the middle of a flat stretch of road. If we could make the turn beyond him, we’d be out on the highway and safe.

The car was slowing down.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I can’t just hit him,” Larry said.

“The hell you can’t.”

“I can’t!” His voice wasn’t outraged, it was scared.

“He’s just playing chicken with us, Larry. He’ll move.”

“Are you sure?” A little boy’s voice asking if there really was a monster in the closet.

“I’m sure; now floor it and get us out of here.”

He pressed down on the accelerator. The car jumped forward, rushing toward the small, straight figure of Jeremy Ruebens.

“He’s not moving,” Larry said.

“He’ll move,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me.”

His eyes flicked to me, then back to the road. “You better be right,” he whispered.

I believed Ruebens would move. Honest. But even if he wasn’t bluffing, the only way out was either past him or through him. It was Ruebens’s choice.

The headlights bathed him in glaring white light. His small, dark features glared at us. He wasn’t moving.

“He isn’t moving,” Larry said.

“He’ll move,” I said.

“Shit,” Larry said. I couldn’t have agreed more.

The headlights roared up onto Jeremy Ruebens, and he threw himself to one side. There was the sound of brushing cloth as his coat slid along the car’s side. Close, damn close.

Larry picked up speed and swung us around the last corner and into the last straight stretch. We spilled out onto the highway in a shower of gravel and spi

Larry’s hands were white on the steering wheel. “You can ease down now,” I said. “We’re safe.”

He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. The car started gradually approaching the speed limit. His face was beaded with sweat that had nothing to do with the cool October evening.

“You all right?”

“I don’t know.” His voice sounded sort of hollow. Shock.

“You did good back there.”

“I thought I was going to run over him. I thought I was going to kill him with the car.”

“He thought so, too, or he wouldn’t have moved,” I said.

He looked at me. “What if he hadn’t moved?”

“He did move.”

“But what if he hadn’t?”

“Then we would have gone over him, and we’d still be on the highway, safe.”

“You would have let me run him down, wouldn’t you?”

“Survival is the name of the game, Larry. If you can’t deal with that, find another business to be in.”

“Animators don’t get shot at.”

“Those were members of Humans First, a right-wing fanatic group that hates anything to do with the supernatural.” So I was leaving out about the personal visit from Jeremy Ruebens. What the kid didn’t know might not hurt him.

I stared at his pale face. He looked hollow-eyed. He’d met the dragon, a little dragon as dragons go, but once you’ve seen violence, you’re never the same again. The first time you have to decide, live or die, us or them, it changes you forever. No going back. I stared at Larry’s shocked face and wished it could have been different. I wished I could have kept him shining, new, and hopeful. But as my Grandmother Blake used to say, “If wishes were horses, we’d all ride.”

Larry had had his first taste of my world. The only question was, would he want a second dose, or would he run? Run or go, stay or fight, age-old questions. I wasn’t sure which way I wanted Larry to choose. He might live longer if he got the hell away from me, but then again maybe he wouldn’t. Heads they win, tails you lose.

Chapter 21

“What about my car?” Larry asked.

I shrugged. “You’ve got insurance, right?”

“Yes, but…”

“Since they couldn’t trash us, they may decide to trash your car.”

He looked at me as if he wasn’t sure whether I was kidding. I wasn’t.

There was a bicycle in front of us suddenly, out of the dark. A child’s pale face flashed in the headlights. “Watch out!”

Larry’s eyes flicked back to the road in time to see the kid’s wide, startled eyes. The brakes squealed, and the child vanished from the narrow arch of lights. There was a crunch and a bump before the car skidded to a stop. Larry was breathing heavy; I wasn’t breathing at all.

The cemetery was just on our right. We were too close to stop, but… but, shit, it was a kid.

I stared out the back window. The bicycle was a crumpled mess. The child lay in a very still heap. God, please don’t let him be dead.

I didn’t think Humans First had enough imagination to have a child in reserve as bait. If it was a trap, it was a good one, because I couldn’t leave the tiny figure crumpled by the road.

Larry was gripping the steering wheel so hard his arms shook. If I thought he’d been pale before, I’d been wrong. He looked like a sick ghost.

“Is he… hurt?” His voice squeezed out deep and rough with something like tears. It wasn’t hurt he’d wanted to say. He just couldn’t bring himself to use the big “D” word. Not yet, not if he could help it.

“Stay in the car,” I said.

Larry didn’t answer. He just sat there staring at his hands. He wouldn’t look at me. But, dammit, this wasn’t my fault. The fact that he’d lost his cherry tonight was not my fault. So why did it feel like it was?

I got out of the car, Browning ready in case the crazies decided to chase us onto the road. They could have gotten the .45 and be coming to shoot us.

The child hadn’t moved. I was just too far away to see the chest rise and fall. Yeah, that was it. I was maybe a yard away.

Please be alive.

The child lay sprawled on its stomach, one arm trapped underneath, probably broken. I sca

His curly brown hair was silken, baby-fine. The skin of his neck was cool to the touch. Shock? It was too soon to be cold from death. I waited for the big pulse in his neck, but nothing happened. Dead. Please, God, please.

His head raised up, and a soft sound came out of his mouth. Alive. Thank you, God.

He tried to roll over but fell back against the road. He cried out.

Larry was out of the car, coming towards us. “Is he all right?”

“He’s alive,” I said.

The boy was determined to roll over, so I grabbed his shoulders and helped. I tried to keep his right arm in against his body. I had a glimpse of huge brown eyes, round baby face, and in his right hand was a knife bigger than he was. He whispered, “Tell him to come help move me.” Tiny little fangs showed between baby lips. The knife pressed against my stomach over the sport bag. The point slid underneath the leather jacket to touch the shirt underneath. I had one of those frozen moments when time stretches out in slow-mo nightmare. I had all the time in the world to decide whether to betray Larry, or die. Never give anyone to the monsters; it’s a rule. I opened my mouth and screamed, “Run!”