by Kat Cotton
“We won,” Lilly said. “I can’t believe it. We won.”
Even Nuno gave a little cry of joy.
They’d saved me. The three of them had worked together to save me. I shuddered to think what would’ve happened without them.
Then I did something I’d never done before in my life. I reached out and hugged them, drawing them to me. The feeling of their arms, and their bodies against mine seemed so right.
The guy from the next show ran in, full of beans now, and broke up the group hug.
“You need to be out of here,” he said. “We have to set up.”
Duke broke away and approached him but I grabbed his arm.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I want to get out of here.”
Lilly got my coat and they led me to the van. I felt useless but there was nothing I could do to help with the load out. I could only sit in the van wondering what the hell had happened. I’d wanted to use my power and I’d got that wish. The demon was gone. But it’d come at a helluva price. Maybe, with some rest and a decent sleep, my body would recover but it’d take a lot longer for my mind.
But what about Sequins & Daggers? They’d helped me. I wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for them. Still, they had secrets. A lot of secrets. So much of what they’d said didn’t make sense. Even if they weren’t the killers, I needed to get to the bottom of what they were.
I needed to get to the bottom of what I was too. I needed to accept myself as this weird, freaky being that could do things others couldn’t. .
Duke slid open the van door.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
I nodded. I would be okay.
“We won’t be much longer,” he said and handed me a hot drink.
I pulled my coat tighter around me. The sooner we got out of this place, the better. More than anything right now, I needed to sleep. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. All the questions, all the secrets, they could wait. I needed to sleep for about two days solid then I’d get to work.
It didn’t take long for the others to finish up and join me in the van.
As we pulled out of the car park, someone watched me. Akira. I’d forgotten about him after I’d sent him to check out the clown. He kept watching as we drove away, the expression on his face impossible to read. How much of that had he seen anyway?
Chapter 37
A FEW DAYS LATER, I did a debriefing with Larry. Well, as much of a debriefing as I could without mentioning demons and things.
Duke had asked me to stay with the troupe when they moved on. They had shows planned interstate. I’d told him I’d think about it. I didn’t tell him that I couldn’t make that decision. I needed to keep my undercover cop identity hidden. I wanted to go with them. I wanted it so much.
Since that night, I found it hard to be around other people. Even coming into the office had been difficult. No one else understood. And my connection with the troupe had become so strong that it’d hurt to sever it.
But I figured Larry would want me off the case now.
“As far as I can tell, they aren’t mixed up in the murders,” I said, when Larry asked about the troupe.
“But you have no hard evidence.”
“Nothing either way.”
I couldn’t exactly tell him that the troupe had assisted me when I battled the demon. I couldn’t even put a spin on that since we hadn’t apprehended any suspects. On paper, we’d done nothing.
The only arrest of the night had been Akira’s. He’d found that creepy clown leaving the dressing room with a haul that included a few valuables and a couple of pairs of panties. I’d known that clown was weird and wrong.
I waited for the inevitable. That Larry would say he was closing down the case since I’d gotten nowhere. Funding was a huge issue for him and no results meant no money. That meant I’d never see Sequins & Daggers again. A sadness settled on me but I couldn’t decide my actions based on emotions. The tax payers would hardly pay for me to hang out with people just because I liked them.
That thought struck me hard. I did like them. I’d so seldom let people close to me that the idea of liking or not liking them had no meaning to me.
I’d never see Duke again. I’d never hang out with Lilly or do whatever it was I did with Nuno. And I’d never gotten the chance to perform properly.
“We need hard evidence, Jayne. We need you to stay on this case.”
I jumped. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Sure. No problem. They’re moving to Brisbane next and they’ve asked me to stay on with them.”
Larry nodded. “I’ll organize a contact for you up there. Do you feel safe with them?”
I grinned. “Well apart from having knives thrown at me and that kind of thing, yeah I do.”
“That’s good. Excellent.” He nodded, a sign that I was dismissed.
As I walked out, George grabbed hold of me, his eyes shining.
“That show was amazing. Just amazing. You were great. The creepy demon guy, how did he do that? He seemed to literally transform before my eyes. It was a trick of the light, right? Smoke and mirrors?”
I grinned but didn’t answer.
“Tell me when you’re performing again. I want to see it again. I never knew you could do stuff like that.”
People will believe anything when confronted with the supernatural.
I went straight to the warehouse to let Duke know I’d stay with the troupe. We had a ton of rehearsing to do before we moved on.
On the drive there, I ran through my routine in my head. In the end, I never got to do any of the pieces I’d rehearsed. That seemed like a terrible shame but for these next shows, I’d be better and stronger. I’d already thought of improvements to my act. Adjustments I could make to improve things.
Duke needed to know about that.
As soon as I walked into the warehouse, I sensed something was wrong. Lilly and Nuno both jumped up when I walked in but they slumped when they saw it was me.
“Have you seen Duke?” Lilly asked.
I shook my head. “Not since the other day.”
Lilly looked at Nuno, the two of them exchanging one of their looks.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “I need to talk to him.”
“We all need to talk to him. He’s disappeared,” she said. “Completely disappeared. He said he needed to go out yesterday and he hasn’t returned.”
It could be one of a million things, surely. Lilly loved drama. Then my heart dropped. From the look on Nuno’s face, this was bad. Real bad.
...
THE END
...
Thanks for reading Smoke, Mirrors and Demons. For more carnival fun, join Jayne and the Sequins & Daggers troupe in book 2 - The Demonic Wheel of Death - out soon.
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ABOUT ME:
I write character-driven Urban Fantasy with kick ass chicks and pretty boy vampires.
I’m a digital nomad, although I hate that term because it makes me sound like a wanky hipster. Which I’m not. Okay, I am a bit snobby about coffee and I sometimes wear twee vintage dresses but that doesn’t make me a hipster.
On my travels, I love visiting weird and macabre places. Mummified hands that remove curses, museums of infectious diseases, collections of taxidermed frogs riding Penny Farthings - hell yeah! And, I can’t really talk about it but one time I even did ninja training.
I love hearing from readers so if you’ve got questions about my books, cool locations I can visit or just want to say hi, email me - [email protected] or visit my website �
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