by Kat Cotton
“You’re going to read them now?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s not like I’ll sleep anyway. I want to get to the bottom of this.”
“I’ll make coffee,” he said. “I’m not sleeping either.”
The two of us sat together, scanning through the dusty old books.
“Where did you get these?” I asked him.
“I’ve been building up a collection over the years. Never know when this type of thing’ll come in handy.”
I nodded and went back to my reading.
After a while, he put his book down. “They want me to take a desk job,” he said.
I snorted. “You’d hate that.”
Then I gave him a closer look. He was considering it? I always assumed Buzz would be the same forever. Working on the streets was his life. He’d never struck me as a desk job kind of guy.
“I thought I’d hate doing anything else but this job wouldn’t be so bad. It’s doing outreach with young kids. The troublemakers.”
“I’d have thought you’d had enough of that in your life,” I said with a grin.
“You were never that much trouble, Jayne,” he said. “You had a smart head on your shoulders and you wanted to fit in. Have you found anything useful?”
“Not really. This is mainly about the different types of demons. Nothing about repelling them. There has to be something though. It makes me wonder. Did those sigils I had on my place ever work or were they just a placebo? I’ve never had a demon attack me at home before but maybe that was just because no demon ever tried. They might be total bullshit. The only thing that worked was the hex bag and I had to shove that right in his mouth.”
Buzz shrugged and took a gulp of his coffee.
“Who knows? You know you always have the option of moving back in here.”
“And put you in danger too? No way.”
The offer tempted me, though. I’d moved out when I started working figuring I needed a place of my own and wanting to be independent but I knew I’d sleep better knowing Buzz was around. That was pure selfishness.
I kept leafing through the books, hoping there’d be an answer in one of them. I suddenly stopped flicking and stared at a page. Then I held it up to Buzz.
“These are the same sigils,” I said.
I’d only ever used the same marks my Ma had used. I’d watched her draw them as a kid. Sometimes I helped her. I had no idea where they’d come from or why she’d used them. I’d never thought much of it until I left home.
The book said the sigils came from a secret order. No mention of what the secret order was or what they did or anything practical. Had my Ma been part of that secret order? More likely she’d seen the markings somewhere and copied them down to use herself. Secret orders weren’t her thing, not unless there was money to be made from them.
“It’s a starting point,” Buzz said.
“I don’t want a starting point. I want protection,” I said.
Buzz looked up from the book he had in his hands and reached out for my book.
“These are the sigils you use?” he asked.
I nodded. “Pretty much exactly.”
He looked from my book to his and back again, then nodded his head.
“The sigils contain demon names. Seems to me that those sigils of yours aren’t a catchall. If the demon isn’t named, then there’s no protection.”
I sucked in my breath. How could you name every single demon? That would be impossible. There seemed to be a helluva lot of demons in this world.
“That’s not all,” Buzz said. “Some of these marks aren’t to keep demons out but to invite them in.”
I reel back in shock. No way. Who would do that?
“There’s this one demon, Clauneck who gives out wealth. Looks like he’s one of the invited ones.”
That answered my question. My parents, that’s who’d invite him in. I should’ve known better than to accept anything they did without question. Wealthy was all well and good if earned in the right way but calling up demons to help you get it was so far from right.
I’d just mindlessly followed them in this since Ma had always said she did it to protect us. Instead, I’d been inviting those dirty bastards in to my home.
I looked at the markings again. “Is that a penis?” I said, noticing the particular marking for the first time. “I’ve drawn that sigil since I was a kid and never noticed it looked like that before. Ew, gross.”
Buzz laughed. “You need new sigils,” he said. “Ones without penises and open invitations.”
I picked up my coffee. It’d gone cold while I’d been reading but I drank it anyway.
“Or something to cloak myself,” I said. “I could be invisible to the demons. I thought I was doing that but it seems not.”
“Or you could fight them,” Buzz said.
“Or fight them?”
I’d been hiding myself away for so long that fighting had never seemed like an option. I’d stayed under the radar, living my life but it’d only ever been half a life anyway. The only risky decision I’d made in years was when I joined the force. That’d been something I’d needed to do for my own sanity.
I closed my eyes. Taking this case would be the most foolish thing I could do but I’d made myself a target regardless, and tonight would be just the beginning, one way or the other.
Joining the Sequins & Daggers troupe would be nothing like going back to my old life in the circus anyway. They were hipsters. They’d probably never even come into contact with people from that circuit. They performed at festivals not dirty old fairgrounds.
I had two choices, join them and fight or huddle in my house and wait for the demons to come to me. I didn’t like huddling. Even if we found something to protect me, it wouldn’t be enough. I’d never be safe while this demon was out there.
I picked up my phone, doubting Duke would answer this early in the morning. He picked up after a couple of rings.
“Is the position still open?” I asked. “If so, I’m in.”
Chapter 10
DUKE WAS WAITING WHEN I turned up at the rehearsal space two days later. He still had the annoying mustache and he wore a different velvet dress coat. There’d just be the four of us here, rehearsing all day. He didn’t need to dress like that.
I’d spent the previous day doing all the necessary paperwork and briefings with Larry then had collapsed in a heap when I got home, not even making it to the gym. A night of lost sleep will do that to you.
All that had been achieved was that Larry had put someone onto tracing the money side of things and he promised to get another agent working at the performance site for back up. But I’d redone all the sigils at my home, replacing them with marks that held more protection. I wasn’t sure if they’d work any better but they had to do.
“We’ve got work to do,” Duke said, clapping his hands together when he saw me. “We’ve got a show in two weeks and we need to get you up to speed in that time. It’s not easy slotting an outsider into the show.”
I nodded.
“Where did you train?” he asked. “You were very vague about that on your resume.”
“I’ve just picked up skills here and there.”
He raised an eyebrow. “From what I’ve seen, you’ve done more than just pick up skills. Some of those girls who auditioned had years of formal training and they were nowhere close to your level.”
I shrugged. “Some people got it, some people don’t.”
I wasn’t normally that cheeky but I’d say what I had to if it got him off my scent. When Duke’s mouth twitched, I knew I’d said the right thing. It wasn’t anywhere near a full smile but, like with most show folk, a bit of cockiness never went amiss. You didn’t survive long in this business without it.
To start off, he put me through a bunch of drills. Kid’s stuff but it got me warmed up. Then I checked all the equipment before we began training.
“Who does the rigging for your show?” I asked.
Ther
e was no way I’d be getting up on that hoop without a qualified rigger working with me. The rigger was as much a part of the act as I was. It was one thing doing a few tricks for an audition but in a show, I needed to have full trust in the person working with me.
“Nuno.”
“He’s qualified?”
Duke nodded. “Best in the business.”
“You’re with us until we do this one show, got it? It’s a showcase and it’s essential we get everything perfecto. The only reason we’ve got you joining us is that we need a solo performer up there so that the rest of us have time to prep our acts. You’re here to make us look good. I like the hoop. Gets audiences looking upward so we can work on the ground without any other need to divert them. You’ll have two spots and the wheel. You don’t have to be earth shattering but we can’t be embarrassed either. Kapeesh?”
I itched to tell him that “kapeesh” wasn’t real Italian but a slangy deviation but hey, I wasn’t here to teach him Italian. Even if he was wrong.
“Understood,” I replied.
“Gretchen did a fire act. Can you do fire?”
I shook my head.
He had no hesitation in mentioning her name, no grief. I’d expected not to have to tiptoe around her death.
“You can do aerial stuff. What else can you do? Dance? Sing? Juggle?”
“I tightrope walk,” I said. Well, I had been able to. A long time ago. I just assumed that, like the hoop, it’d come back to me.
He shook his head. “We don’t have time to set up something like that. The aerial hoop we can do. That takes minimal equipment. I’ll think about it and get back to you. What about silks?”
“Never done them but I could.”
Duke shook his head and walked over to the sound system. “No time.”
“So, what exactly happened to Gretchen?” I asked.
“Accident. Not on stage. Ready?”
The warehouse filled with music. A female voice sang out, a song of rowdy desires.
“You’ve got good base skills but you really lack the pizazz we need for this show. So, let’s see you move,” he said walking back to stand in front of me.
He’d seen me move at the audition. He knew I was no dancer.
“I’m not dancing,” I said. “It’s not my thing.”
“Well we can make it your thing.” His mustache twitched, making me wonder if this was important or if he was just toying with me.
I glared at him. He glared back.
“It’s this or fire eating.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know as well as I do that you need certification for fire eating.”
Even though I said that, if he wanted me to dance, I’d dance. I started swaying my hips. I wasn’t sure what other moves to make. Acrobatics were my forte. I added in some hand movements but I felt like a total fool.
The music stopped.
“No, no, no,” Duke yelled. “That’s terrible. You’re as stiff as a board. Give it another go.”
“I told you I’m not a dancer. Some people dance and some people don’t. I work on strength.”
“Well, think of this as skilling up.”
I’d skill him up. I’d skill him his damn... I took a deep breath. I was here to ingratiate myself into the troupe, not punch them.
The music came back on and I started moving again. This time he stood behind me and put his hands on my hips. If that was meant to loosen me up, he could think again. My entire body went rigid and the only thing on my mind was the heat of his body against my back. He stood way too close.
“I can tumble,” I said.
He began moving and his hips ground against me. I tried to hold myself away but his arms wrapped around my waist, holding me tight.
“Just relax,” he whispered in my ear.
Relax? I was as far from relaxed as I could get. I tried to match my hip movements with his but this was way too stimulating for my own comfort. His chin almost rested on my shoulder, his breath fluttering my hair. His hands burned against my skin, right through the fabric of my t-shirt. And what his hips did against my butt was almost criminal.
“Relax,” he whispered again and as his head turned, his mustache tickled against my neck.
I wanted to pull away from him but he gripped me too tight. My stomach fluttered in a way that made me want to run and hide and never come back. These feelings sure as hell weren’t part of the deal.
If I fought against him, I’d never get this case solved. Part of being undercover was assimilating yourself with your target. That social side of things never came naturally to me and the way Duke moved against me was way more assimilating than I was comfortable with.
The door banged and Lilly burst into the studio. She looked us up and down.
“Am I interrupting a private moment?” she asked.
“No, not at all,” I said, taking the chance to pull away from Duke.
She nodded then stripped off her street clothes, if you could call them street clothes. She had on a vintage suit and her hair done so that she looked like one of those girls from a World War II movie. No yoga pants and t-shirt for Lilly. Even her underwear looked vintage. An old fashioned bustier and satin tap pants.
She pulled on a skin-tight dress. The sides were cut out to reveal even more flesh and to enhance her hourglass figure, which was extenuated by sequins and bling. If I wore something like that, I’d look ridiculous but, on Lilly, the spangles and bling seemed natural.
Nuno arrived not long after she did. What was with these people and the way they dressed? Nuno wasn’t nearly as formal as the others but he had on one of those stripy tops like mimes wear and baggy pants.
Didn’t these people know we weren’t actually performing today? We didn’t need to be in costume.
I had a feeling Nuno didn’t like me. He didn’t look at me as he walked into the warehouse. He didn’t say hello. Maybe he had secrets he was hiding. But then, maybe we all did.
Nuno nodded at Duke and then went into the store room. He got out a folding table and set it up. Lilly headed into the kitchen and Duke grabbed some folding chairs. I wasn’t really sure what I should be doing so just stood out of the way.
What exactly had been going on earlier? That whole dancing thing had been weird. Maybe for him it wasn’t but the traces of his touch remained on my skin. I tried to shake it off. It’d been a while since I’d been with a man and was probably just frustrated. If he thought hitting on the new girl would work, he was completely wrong.
When Lilly came out of the kitchen, we all sat down at the table.
Lilly had a notepad.
“I’ve got the running order of the old act here and I’ve crossed out the bits that need to be changed.”
For someone who looked so glamorous, she was highly organized. That chart was all color coded.
Duke looked at it and nodded. “I’m not sure if Jayne is ready for too much solo work yet. Jayne, that’s an awful name. We need a stage name for you. Get some suggestions to me by tomorrow. Something a bit less — suburban. We could possibly extend Nuno’s act here and here.” Duke pointed at the chart then looked at Lilly. “And you could do an extra song.”
Nuno made a little grunting sound.
“Yes, I know it’s hard on you,” Duke said, “but it’s hard on all of us.”
Had I missed something? Had Nuno spoken? Duke answered him as though he’d said something more than a grunt.
“I can’t just sling out another song that easily either,” Lilly said. “And Jayne was fine at the audition. Don’t underestimate her.”
I smiled at Lilly for her faith in me but she had her head down and didn’t see it.
“You knew this was a possibility from the time we found out about Gretchen. It’s not like I’m just springing this on you now.”
Lilly pouted. “Still doesn’t make it easy.”
“Yes, I’m sure Gretchen met with her untimely end just to inconvenience you,” Duke said.
The way they talked abou
t Gretchen surprised me. She’d been with the troupe for months and then she’d been killed. I expected some kind of grief or regret but all their talk was matter of fact.
Then Duke turned to me.
“A lot rests on this performance. We need to be perfect. You need to be perfect. It’ll be a small crowd but the chance to get on the bill as part of the arts festival circuit sets us up for work for the season. If we come across as anything other than top level, it’ll be kid’s parties for the rest of the year.”
Lilly groaned as though she really was one step from having children’s grubby fingers mauling her outfit.
Duke brought his hand down on the table with a sharp bang. “I’ll keep working with Jayne until we have an idea of her skills and we’ll solidify the rundown at the end of the week. In the meantime, you two keep working on your acts in case we need to pad things out.”
Everyone stood up and Nuno packed the table and chairs back into the store room.
I wondered if I’d have to keep dancing with Duke but he lowered the aerial hoop.
“I know you’re good with this but being good isn’t enough,” he said. “We need to choreograph a routine that fits in with the rest of the performance. That means sexy and it means fluid. So, for now, you show me what you can do and I’ll get to work on the finer details.”
That meant no more dancing. I hated the way that made me so disappointed.
Chapter 11
I THOUGHT REHEARSALS were over for the day so grabbed my bag and headed for the door but Duke blocked my way.
“Not so fast,” he said, then peered behind me. “You too, Lilly.”
Surely he didn’t expect me to do more training. There were only so many hours you could do a day before you got diminishing returns. And diminishing returns meant safety risks.
But nope. Duke handed us a bunch of posters.
“These need to go up all over town,” he said. “And Nuno and I need to spend the next few hours doing some maintenance so you two have the job.”
Lilly groaned. “There are people you can pay to do that, you know. I’ve got things to do. Important things.”