Circus of the Damned

I cradled my arm against my stomach and walked down the steps towards Edward and Richard. By the time I was at the bottom of the steps, the arm felt better. Good enough to change the gun to my right hand. I stared at the bite wound, and damned if it wasn’t healing. The third mark. I was healing like a shapeshifter.

“Are you all right?” Richard asked.

“I seem to be.”

Edward was staring at me. “You should be dying.”

“Explanations later,” I said.

The cobra thing lay at the foot of the dais, its head bisected by machine-gun fire. Edward caught on quick.

There was a scream, high and piercing. Alejandro had Yasmeen twisted around in his arms, one arm behind her back, his other arm pi

Alejandro tore into her throat. She screamed. He snapped her spine with his teeth, blood splattering his face. She sagged in his arms. Movement, and his hand came out through the other side of her chest, the heart crushed to a bloody pulp.

Marguerite shrieked over and over again. Karl let her go, but she didn’t seem to notice. She scratched fingernails down her cheeks until blood ran. She collapsed to her knees, still clawing at her face.

“Jesus,” I said, “stop her.”

Karl stared across at me. I raised the Browning, but he ducked behind Oliver’s dais. I went towards Marguerite. Alejandro stepped between us.

“Do you want to help her?”

“Yes.”

“Let me lay the last two marks upon you, and I will get out of your way.”

I shook my head. “The city for one crazy human servant? I don’t think so.”

“Anita, down!” I dropped flat to the floor, and Edward shot a jet of flame over my head. I could feel the wash of heat bubbling overhead.

Alejandro shrieked. I raised my eyes only enough to see him burning. He motioned outward with one burning hand, and I felt something wash over me back towards… Edward.

I rolled over, and Edward was on his back, struggling to his feet. The nozzle of the flamethrower was pointed this way again. I dropped without being told.

Alejandro motioned, and the flame peeled backwards, flowing towards Edward.

He rolled frantically to put out the flames on his cloak. He threw the burning death’s-head mask onto the ground. The flamethrower’s tank was on fire. Richard helped him struggle out of it, and they ran. I hugged the ground, hands over my head. The explosion shook the ground. When I looked up, tiny burning pieces were raining down, but that was all. Richard and Edward were peering around the other side of the dais.

Alejandro stood there with his clothes charred, his skin blistered. He began walking towards me.

I scrambled to my feet, pointing my gun at him. Of course, the gun hadn’t done a whole lot of good before. I backed up until I bumped the steps.

I started shooting. The bullets went in. He even bled, but he didn’t stop. The gun clicked on empty. I turned and ran.

Something hit me in the back, slamming me to the ground. Alejandro was suddenly on my back, one hand in my hair, bending my neck backwards.

“Put down the machine gun or I’ll break her neck.”

“Shoot him!” I screamed.

But Edward threw the machine gun on the floor. Dammit. He got out a pistol and took careful aim. Alejandro’s body jerked, then he laughed. “You can’t kill me with silver bullets.”

He put a knee in my back to hold me down; then a knife flashed in his hand.

“No,” Richard said, “he won’t kill her.”

“I’ll slit her throat if you interfere, but if you leave us alone, I won’t harm her.”

“Edward, kill him!”

A vampire jumped Edward, riding him to the ground. Richard tried to pull her off him, but a tiny vampire leaped on his back. It was the woman and the little boy from that first night.

“Now that your friends are busy, we will finish our business.”

“NO!”

The knife just nicked the surface, sharp, painful, but such a little cut. He leaned over me. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”

I screamed.

His lips touched the cut, locked on it, sucking. He was wrong. It did hurt. Then the smell of flowers surrounded me. I was drowning in perfume. I couldn’t see. The world was warm and sweet-scented.

When I could see again, think again, I was lying on my back, staring up at the tent roof. Arms drew me upward, cradled me. Alejandro held me close. He’d cut a line of blood on his chest, just above the nipple. “Drink.”

I put my hands flat against him, fighting him. His hand squeezed the back of my neck, forcing me closer to the wound.

“NO!”

I drew the other knife and plunged it into his chest, searching for the heart. He grunted and grabbed my hand, squeezed until I dropped the knife. “Silver is not the way. I am past silver.”

He pushed my face towards the wound, and I couldn’t fight him. I just wasn’t strong enough. He could have crushed my skull in one hand, but all he did was press my face to the cut on his chest.

I struggled, but he kept my mouth pressed to the wound. The blood was salty sweet, vaguely metallic. It was only blood.

“Anita!” Jean-Claude screamed my name. I wasn’t sure if it was aloud or in my head.

“Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, the two shall be as one. One flesh, one blood, one soul.” Somewhere deep inside me, something broke. I could feel it. A wave of liquid warmth rushed up and over me. My skin danced with it. My fingertips tingled. My spine spasmed, and I jerked upright. Strong arms caught me, held me, rocked me.

A hand smoothed my hair from my face. I opened my eyes to see Alejandro. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I was calm and floating.

“Anita?” It was Edward. I turned towards the sound, slowly.

“Edward.”

“What did he do to you?”

I tried to think how to explain it, but my mind wouldn’t bring up the words. I sat up, pushing gently away from Alejandro.

There was a pile of dead vampires around Edward’s feet. Maybe silver didn’t hurt Alejandro, but it had hurt his people.

“We will make more,” Alejandro said. “Can you not read this in my mind?”

And I could, now that I thought about it, but it wasn’t like telepathy. Not words. I—knew he was thinking about the power I’d just given him. He felt no regret about the vampires that had died.

The crowd screamed.

Alejandro looked up. I followed his gaze. Jean-Claude was on his knees, blood pouring down his side. Alejandro envied Oliver the ability to draw blood from a distance. When I became Alejandro’s servant, Jean-Claude had been weakened. Oliver had him.

That had been the plan all along.

Alejandro held me close, and I didn’t try to stop him. He whispered against my cheek, “You are a necromancer, Anita. You have power over the dead. That is why Jean-Claude wanted you as his servant. Oliver thinks to control you through controlling me, but I know that you are a necromancer. Even as a servant, you have free will. You do not have to obey as the others do. As a human servant, you are yourself a weapon. You can strike one of us and draw blood.”

“What are you saying?”

“They have arranged that the loser be stretched over the altar and staked by you.”

“What…”

“Jean-Claude, as affirmation of his power. Oliver, as a gesture to show how well he controlled what once belonged to Jean-Claude.”

There was a gasp from the crowd. Oliver was levitating ever so slowly. He floated to the ground. Then he raised his arms, and Jean-Claude floated upward.

“Shit,” I said.

Jean-Claude hung nearly unconscious in empty, shining air. Oliver laid him gently on the ground, and fresh blood splattered the white floor.

Karl Inger came into sight. He picked Jean-Claude up under the arms.

Where was everybody? I looked around for some help. The black werewolf was torn apart, parts still twitching. I didn’t think even a lycanthrope could heal the mess. The blond werewolf wasn’t much better, but Stephen was dragging himself towards the altar. With one leg completely ripped away, he was trying.