Flesh Circus

by Lilith Saintcrow

  “You know why I’m here, bruja.” His eyes were fixed on my face. “I owe you a beer. And we got business.”

  Yes, I do know why you’re here. You still have to say it. “What kind of business? I’m not involved with petty gang warfare.” No matter how useful you guys were last time I had big trouble in town. My heart squeezed down on itself, thinking of a grave and a coffin, and a good cop laid to rest.

  My fault. If I had known…

  But you never do. I brought myself back to the present with a conscious effort.

  The boy on my front step shrugged. “I ain’t here for Ramon. We got other business.”

  “Like what, Gilberto?” Go away while you still can.

  “Bruja business. With what you do.”

  I held his gaze for a long fifteen seconds, feeling Saul appear behind me, a silent presence. My nostrils flared. It was there, too, the flat odorless reek of desperation with the burnt-sugar edge of wanting.

  He didn’t quite break, but he did pale the slightest bit and step back, as if my mismatched eyes had somehow changed. I knew they hadn’t—there was none of the dry burning that would tell me my blue eye was doing funny things. But even the bravest tend to get a little weirded out when I stare at the bridge of the nose. The gaze grows piercing when you do that, especially if you just soft-focus, and you begin to look like you’re staring through someone’s head, riffling through their most intimate memories.

  It’s a tough look to pull off while covered in dry sweat, rucked-up in a T-shirt and leather pants, and frustrated enough to chew nails. I still managed.

  “I know what you do.” Gilberto dropped his hands. They dangled loosely, reminding me of the strangler-fingered Trader. “I want to do it, too.”

  I didn’t have to put any more bitterness into my laugh. It was already bitter enough. “Go home, poquito. Leave the night alone and don’t darken my door again.” I swept said door to and closed it in his face.

  No sound from the other side. None that you could hear with human ears, that is. I could still hear his heartbeat, pounding a little harder and faster now. Accelerated breathing, too.

  I’ll bet that didn’t go the way you thought it would. I half-turned, and Saul stood close behind me, his hair mussed and high color blooming in his cheeks, one dark eyebrow elegantly lifted.

  I shrugged. “Hopefully he’ll go away. I’m going to hit the shower.”

  “What if he rings the bell again?”

  “Ignore him.” I swung past him, already planning out the rest of the night. “Want a snack before we head out again?”

  His broad shoulders dropped. “I’ll make you eggs.” He even managed to make that sound tentative. His hand twitched again, like he wanted to touch me, but he refrained.

  Why?

  You’ve got other problems, Jill. Just let him be. Be supportive, for once. “Good deal. Thanks, sweetie.” I paced away, a little faster than I should have, trying not to feel like I was retreating.

  Now that was a losing battle.

  5

  Avery’s desk always looked about to disappear under a mound of paper and ranks of liquor bottles. He’d stuck slim candles into bottle mouths, some burned down and others pristine, though I never saw a burning one. If he ever lit them up, it was probably when he was alone.

  Cops aren’t supposed to drink on duty, but exorcists get a little bit of leeway. However, Ave didn’t immediately reach for the mini-fridge under his desk to get me a beer, and that was odd.

  The tiled passageway behind me resounded with faint echoes from the downtown jail above. Here, at the very bottom, the long corridor terminated in Ave’s office and three rooms, each barred with cold iron. Each with a circle carved into the concrete floor to hold victims hosting a Possessor—or those who had been cleaned out but had to be protected from the demon coming back to crawl right in and set up housekeeping.

  He handed over the file. “This is seriously weird.”

  When isn’t it? I rolled my shoulders back in their sockets, my coat creaking a little. “What’s weird? Where’s our boy?”

  “He’s the winner in Room One. Didn’t flinch at the circle or anything. Didn’t even know he was awake until I peeked in the porthole about an hour ago, when I finally got the file all together. There’s some headshots in there too. He has a record.”

  I flipped it open and took a look. A couple of drug arrests, one breaking and entering dismissed with time served, and nothing for the last three years. Emilio Ricardo, thirty-six, brown and brown, employed halfway across town at a Mexican restaurant. Avery had even, bless his thoroughgoing little heart, pulled his recent renewal of a food-handler’s card. “Huh.”

  “Yeah. The address on his food permit isn’t the place on Silverado where I found him.” Avery scratched at his forehead under a flop of brown hair. “It just tingled too funny. I got called in by a patrol car—they’d gone in for a domestic disturbance in the same apartment building and ended up hearing this guy screaming. Couldn’t break the door down, and one of them—Jughead Vanner, you know, blond kid, looks like an advertisement for Clairol—radioed me in. He said it made him feel hinky.”

  That’s odd. “Poor Jughead. You know he came across a Trader a couple months ago?”

  Ave’s sleepy smile bloomed. “He told me. Not in so many words, but… he wanted nothing to do with anything weird. I had to jiggle the door to get it open, and the vic tried to cold-cock me when I stepped in. I returned the favor, we tussled, I knocked him out.”

  “Where was he when you came in? Right next to the door?”

  “Guess so. Why?”

  “No reason.” The straight razor was still in my pocket. For some reason, it bothered me. “So he’s been quiet?”

  “As a mouse.” Avery’s eyebrows were struggling not to rise. “Something wrong, Jill?”

  “Not yet.” But this is strange. “I’ll peek in on him, then I’ve got a couple other things to do. Can you hold him for a bit?”

  He made an expansive motion, rolling his eyes. “All things should be so easy. It’s been quiet on the exorcism front.”

  I didn’t tell him that with the Cirque in town, exorcisms would probably bottom out for a while. He didn’t need that kind of uneasiness weighing him down. “Yeah. I haven’t pulled something out of someone for at least two weeks, before this.”

  “No rest for the wicked.” He indicated the first door. “Wanna take a look? Eva and I are going out for beers after I get off-shift. In about twenty minutes.”

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time with her. Speaking of Eva, how’s Benito? And Wallace? Is Benny’s leg okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, it itches like hell under that cast but he’s all right. Says he feels more stupid than anything else.” Avery pointedly didn’t mention Eva again, and—was he blushing?

  I stared at him, my jaw threatening to drop. Ave’s got a sleepy smile and big brown eyes, both of which draw women like honey. They don’t stay—girls don’t like it when their man spends his nights somewhere else, even if it’s with possessed people. And Avery never makes much of an effort to keep them, either.

  But he and Eva had been hanging out an awful lot lately. She’s smart, tough, and a capable exorcist, even if she’d never make a hunter. Both Benito and Wallace have a little-sister thing going for her, and she handles it as gracefully as any woman in a predominantly male field does.

  That is, with a smart mouth and twice the moxie of any mere man.

  I swallowed the smile struggling to rise to my face. “Mmmh. Serves him right, taking on an exorcism-plus like that without calling me.” I put the file under my arm and stepped up to the first door, my back itching a little because it was to the hallway. Only one entrance and one exit to any exorcist’s lair.

  Getting trapped is a risk we’ll take. Letting a Possessor or a victim escape without being cleaned out isn’t.

  “Eh, well. None of us want to call you without reason.” He shrugged when I glanced at him. “I know, I know. Better t
o call you without need than to need you and not call you. Believe me, I’m down with that.”

  I eased the bolt on the porthole free, slid the small reinforced square aside. Even this aperture was barred with cold iron, blue light running under its pitted, rusting surface. Reinforcing the protections on a space like this was an every-day, every-other-day job at most. Some exorcists do it twice a day, even.

  Considering the alternative, I don’t blame them.

  Emilio Ricardo crouched in the center of the circle scored in the concrete floor. He rocked back and forth, subvocalizing, and now that the peephole was open I could hear it, a tuneless buzzing plucking at the air. He was hugging himself, and the rags of his shirt fluttered. The restraints lay in a corner, a jumble of leather straps.

  Interesting. “Did you untie him?”

  “Yeah. Figured he was going to be in there awhile. I’ll trank him through the door if we need to take him out for a walk.” Avery shivered. “I got a bad feeling about this, Kiss.”

  Don’t call me that. “Me too.” I shut my dumb right eye and peered through, concentrating.

  There was only a slight, fading quiver of the unnatural around Ricardo. He was just keening, probably in psychological shock. Either that, or…

  “Huh.” I looked closer, my smart eye dry and buzzing.

  “I hate it when you say that,” Avery muttered.

  Lingering cheesecloth veils hung around him, pulsing every time he took a breath. It looked like he was fighting free of the contamination—though contamination isn’t the right word when it comes to voodoo or any of her cousins. He was definitely struggling with the mental and emotional damage done by having something inhuman use your body as a hotel room—or getting that something violently evicted.

  It didn’t look like the regular event of a loa or orisha “riding a horse.” The bargains that priests and priestesses make with those spirits are well-defined on both sides, and initiation into the secrets of any voodoo-esque branch carries a protection against unwanted possession as well as methods of doing it safely.

  That is, if any possession can be called “safe.”

  They are jealous of their followers, those spirits. I learned as much doing a residency, working the voodoo beat in New Orleans. Now that had been an education. Just goes to show there’s always something more you can learn, even as a hunter.

  I slid the porthole closed, locked it. “Has he eaten anything?”

  Avery shook his sleek dark head. “Nothing yet. I slide the food in, he doesn’t touch it.”

  I don’t like this. I restrained the urge to flip through the file again. “Okay. I’m going to ask some questions. Hopefully I—” My pager buzzed, I broke off and dug for it. “Jesus. Never rains but it pours.”

  “You say that a lot. I’ll just keep feeding him, then.”

  “Be careful. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, and until I am I don’t want him going anywhere. Okay?” I checked the pager. Galina, again. Which meant I had to get over there—it wasn’t like her to buzz right after I’d visited her unless something was going on. Usually she’ll just wait for me to drop by every couple of weeks, figuring I have other irons in the fire.

  “Okay. Say hi to Saul for me, will you?”

  “I will.” I pocketed my pager, took another long look at the closed door holding a mystery behind it, shook my head, and turned on my heel. “Say hi to Eva for us.”

  He was blushing. He should’ve known I wouldn’t leave without twitting him. “Go fuck yourself, Kismet.”

  I laughed and was on my way, pushing up the stairs lightly with each foot. Outside the jail, the Pontiac was parked in a fire lane, Saul leaning against the front left quarter-panel and smoking. The streetlamp shine of just-past-dark was kind, and I stopped on the steps for a moment, just taking a good look at him.

  Tall, dark man, silver in his short black hair, jeans and combat boots and a black T-shirt. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, and almost too delicious to be real. Weres are generally striking if not beautiful. They just look more finished than regular humans.

  He was studying the street, presenting me with a three-quarter profile hard-edged as a statue. There were dark circles under his eyes, I noticed, and his mouth was drawn tight. And his shoulders were hunched in a way I’d never seen before.

  He looked tired. Well, his mom just died. Leave it alone, Jill. Be supportive.

  My pager buzzed again, and I fished it out.

  Galina, again. A chill touched my nape. “Fuckity.”

  That got Saul’s attention. He ditched his cigarette, a long, thin stream of smoke following its arc into the gutter. “What’s up?”

  “Galina’s buzzing. Twice. I should get over there. Avery says hi, by the way. I think he and Eva are dating.” I waited for him to give me a quick smile, waited for his eyebrow to quirk.

  Instead, his mouth turned even thinner. “Huh.”

  He really did look tired. My fingers tightened on the manila folder, making it creak and crackle slightly. “I can drop you off at home.”

  That earned me a look sharp enough to break a window. “You don’t want me along?”

  What? “Of course I do. You just look a little under the weather, that’s all.” You look tired, and I don’t blame you.

  He didn’t scowl, but it was close. “I’m fine.” He slid along the side of the car, opened his door, and dropped in as my pager sounded again.

  Goddammit. I stalked around the front, popped the driver’s door, and got in, tossing the file in the backseat. I’d go over it after we found out what was going down at Galina’s. “Saul—”

  “I’m fine.” He lit another Charvil. “If that’s Galina we’d better hurry.”

  “You’re actually telling me to drive fast?”

  He grabbed for the seat belt as I twisted the key. The Pontiac purred into life. “Christ, when do you not drive fast, kitten?”

  When indeed. I dropped the Pontiac into gear. My pager buzzed again, and I floored it while Saul was still trying to get his seat belt on.

  6

  Galina’s shop windows shone with featureless yellow light behind paper-thin blinds. The telephone poles marching alongside the road in this part of town were festooned with paper. As I cut the engine, looking at the one right next to the car, I saw a huge painted poster stapled over the weathered drift of concert announcements and nudie-bar placards.

  Come To The Circus! Art Deco flowers festooned the edges, and in the middle was a grinning clown’s face, deep lines in its paint, leering at the street. A suggestion of fangs touched the greased lower lip, and the clown’s eyebrows came up to high peaks. A dusting of corruption lay over the paper, visible only to my blue eye.

  There was no address. Of course, the people who wanted to would find it. That’s the way it works.

  My mouth went dry. “Jeez.”

  Saul barely gave it a glance. “Trashy.” He opened his door, flicking his Charvil into the gutter.

  A shadow moved in the plate-glass front of the shop across the street. I eyed it for a few moments, took my time opening my door. Blue fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror rocked slowly to a halt—Galina’s gift, a replacement for the red ones that had gone up in flames with my Impala.

  The thought still pissed me off. I’d nursed that car back into shape from a rusted hulk in a wrecking yard. All that work and effort gone in a few heartbeats, dying in the barrio.

  Saul hadn’t asked any questions when I picked him up from the train station in the Pontiac. I was glad about that.

  The shadow in Galina’s window moved again. I slid out of the car, slammed my door, and eased a gun free of the holster. Saul had paused at the rear of the car, his head up, hot wind touching his hip-length leather jacket and making the fringe move a little. His dark eyes flicked to the gun in my hand, and he straightened infinitesimally before stepping out into the road.

  He followed two steps behind and to my left, carefully out of the way but close enough if I shoul
d need him. The skin between my shoulder blades twitched a little when I crossed the centerline—it hadn’t been so long ago that I’d been right in the middle of the street and got chewed up by an assault rifle. They’d used copper-jacketed lead, the dumb bunnies, instead of silver to hurt a helltainted hunter.

  Everyone skipping and scrambling to kill me, when if they’d just left me alone they could have quietly had their bioweapon and their higher-up from Hell stepping through to make my entire city—hell, probably the entire country—a wasteland before I could stop them. There wouldn’t have been a damn thing I could do about it. I’d only been poking around the suicide of Monty’s old partner, not looking for a serious dose of lead poisoning or a firebombed car.

  I wasn’t far enough away from that case yet for my body to forget. A prickle of chill touched the curve of my lower back.

  The body remembers, and the body knows. You can override that knowing with enough training, but it’s still never pleasant.

  The blinds twitched and one moved aside slightly. The shape in the window was Galina, her marcel-waved hair an immaculate cap as always. Her green eyes sparked as the sheet of etheric energy folding over her shop changed slightly, like light refracting through a waterfall. Even my dumb eye could sense the reverberations, watering and tingling. The scar prickled.

  “She looks worried,” Saul murmured.

  “No shit,” I muttered back. Inside her shop, Galina’s will is law—she is, after all, a Sanctuary. But anything could happen on the way up to her doorstep.

  And who knew what was waiting for us around here? It wasn’t like her to call more than once. They all know the drill, everyone who dials me—I’ll get around to you sooner or later, unless I’m being shot, strangled, knifed, electrocuted, thrown off a building, or doing anything else fun and interesting.