by A. R. Kahler
The Immortal Circus
Act Two
The Immortal Circus
Act Two
A.R. Kahler
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2013 by A.R. Kahler
Photo of Paul Taylor's "Promethean Fire" copyright © Lois Greenfield.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
P.O. Box 400818
e-ISBN: 9781477857373
Table of Contents
Episode One
Chapter One: Happily Never After
Chapter Two: Wonderland
Chapter Three: Haunted
Episode Two
Chapter Four: Beautiful Stranger
Chapter Five: Love Is a Losing Game
Chapter Six: Kill the Lights
Chapter Seven: Bad Blood
Episode One
Chapter One
Happily Never After
The fire is almost beautiful, in a way. It smolders against the setting sun, weaving a trail of thick white smoke into the pink and fuchsia sky. It’s just after the final curtain of our last show at this site, and the patrons who filter from the big top’s black-and-violet canopy take in the spectacle as though it were all part of the show. After all, it’s set up in the center of the promenade leading to the main entrance. And no one’s rushing around to extinguish the self-contained blaze. A few patrons stop and point and take pictures when they get closer, when they realize that it’s not just a bonfire in the middle of the walk. No, there’s something inside the pyre. Something that looks an awful lot like our ringmaster.
I stand a few yards back and watch the scene with a detached sort of dread. I know there isn’t meant to be a burning effigy right outside the tent. I know it wasn’t there before intermission. The only thing keeping my heartbeat even is the knowledge that the burning figure isn’t human: I can see the tightly bound twigs splintering and can hear the crackle of snapping sap. Whoever made the effigy of Mab did a damn good job, from the black top hat to the whip that’s now just a stub in one smoldering hand. The figure’s porcelain-hued skin was probably plaster, judging from how it cracks and peels. But the Swarovski crystals and sequins are real, as are the thigh-high leather boots that already smell like crisping skin. It’s eerie, watching Mab burn on a pedestal of carefully laid wood. Especially when the real Mab appears beside me.
This Mab, all five-feet-six of her, practically quivers with rage. She keeps herself in check, however; her only tell is the way her knuckles whiten around the handle of her corded leather whip. I’ve known her long enough to understand that this one small crack in her composure is sign enough. Everyone else might think she’s calm, but I know there’s a storm raging beneath that rouged facade.
Like the effigy, Mab’s in black leather stiletto boots that reach her knees. From there on up it’s fishnet and corset and a ringmaster coat that looks like it was pulled from some kinky Victoria’s Secret photo shoot. Mab’s eyes are green as crystal, her white face perfectly painted with blushed cheeks and crimson lips. Once more, I can’t help but think she looks like a young Cher, complete with her flowing black locks and cheekbones of a goddess. That and her affinity for leotards and bare skin.
“I trust, Vivienne,” she says, her words as tight as her grip on the whip, as smoky as the trail weaving spirals above her disintegrating doppelgänger, “that you have no clue who did this.”
“I was watching the last act,” I say.
There’s a pop from the effigy, one that causes a few of the punters—the more PC term we use for the show’s guests—to jump. The figure’s top hat falls off and rolls to burn at the feet of a rather stunned-looking Asian couple. The man raises his camera and takes a photo; the flash doesn’t go off, and I wonder if he was secretly snapping away throughout the show. I wonder if the Shifters standing further off notice, and if the man will still have his camera when he reaches his car.
“What does this mean?” I ask, finally. It’s rare that Mab speaks to me. After what happened only a few months ago, she’s made herself increasingly scarce when she’s not onstage. I can’t say I blame her. After all, she was attacked by the Prince of the Summer Court.
“It means,” she says, “that Oberon is done playing games. This is a declaration of war.”
*
When the crowd has cleared and the effigy has faded to ash, the troupe gathers around the spent pyre and does what circus performers do best: gossip. I don’t try to find a place among them; instead, I stand on a small hilltop, the entire circus splayed out below like a child’s toy set. I have no desire to be down there exchanging theories. I know that not one of them has a clue about what’s actually going on behind the scenes. The old recruits were magically forced to forget what happened in the massacre three months ago. The newbies were hired on after their predecessors were killed in the Summer Court’s attack. I’m one of the few who remembers the tragedy. And today, like most days, I wish I could bring myself to forget.
Stupid fucking contracts.
“Not exactly how I thought we’d close the show,” says a voice behind me.
I don’t turn around, but I do feel my shoulders lose a little bit of the tension they’ve been holding. I lean back against the speaker’s chest as his arms instinctively wind around my waist.
“Yeah, well, Mab’s good at defying expectations,” I say. He chuckles.
Kingston smells like musk and cinnamon, a mix that’s become almost more comforting than his embraces in the past few months. Almost. The magician is very good with his hands.
“Mab’s pissed,” I say.
“I’m surprised,” he replies. He sighs and pulls me tighter. “Did she say anything to you?”
A few months ago, it would have surprised me that he asked. But now I know I’m one of the inner circle. Mab didn’t make Kingston erase my memory. Maybe because, like the last few times he’d tried, it would have been doomed to fail. Or maybe because I’d proven myself ready to know more. Either way, it was starting to feel like Kingston, Mab, and I were the only three who really knew the truth behind this show. In any other situation, that would have made me feel important or special. Now it was just one more reason to feel like I was isolated from the rest of the troupe.
“Oberon’s declaring war,” I say. “And in a very passive-aggressive way, Mab was trying to see if I was the culprit.”
Kingston squeezes me and nuzzles his face in my ash-blonde hair.
“Oberon’s always declaring war,” he murmurs. “And you know you were never really a suspect.”
I shrug. Yeah, I know. Last time around, when it was performers and not effigies who were showing up dead, Mab made it very clear that I was suspect numero uno. After all, I was new in the troupe; no one knew anything about me; and I had the fantastic perk of not knowing much about me either. But it had all been a ploy to trap the real culprit. Poor Penelope. It’s hard to hate her; she just wanted to be free. And I know that one day I might get just as fed up with the show as she did. Hopefully I never get to her point of desperation, though. Hiring the Summer Court to murder the troupe seems a bit over the top.
I may not know much about my contract, but I do know the rules of its termination. Either I stay on for eternity, or I serve my purpose to Mab and walk away without a second glance.
If only I k
new what that purpose was.
Kingston turns me around. Our stage magician is a stunning sight. He looks like he should be playing guitar in some rock band, not touring with a bunch of circus freaks and doing parlor tricks. His hair is black and shaggy, his jaw covered in what seems to be an eternal five o’clock shadow. It’s getting cooler now that the summer is almost over, and tonight he’s wearing a leather jacket over his usual faded shirt and frayed jeans. The head of his gray tattoo curls up his neck. The feathered serpent gives me a toothy grin.
“You’ve got to get this out of your head, Viv. It’s not your fault.”
I look down at his dusty Converse. It’s easy for him to say. He’s not the one who’s been having the nightmares, the visions. He doesn’t wake up feeling like there’s something terribly wrong. He doesn’t have his sight shift while cleaning dishes, doesn’t smell the scent of burning blood …. Kingston knows what his powers are. I still have no clue what happened the day the Summer Fey attacked, when my hands glowed white and I was somehow able to take down not only the fey but the demon Kassia as well.
Kingston also doesn’t know about the choice I made in Mab’s trailer, when Penelope offered me the perfect way out of all of this. If I had let her win, if I had just stayed in the trailer until the fight was over, I could have been free. Free to live with Kingston and Melody. Free to be normal. I almost let her, then. After all, my contract was for eternity, just like hers, and seeing the deadness in her eyes was a concrete reminder of just how long eternity really is.
His finger nudges my chin up until I meet his eyes. His irises are dark as mocha and, right now, just as intense.
“You’re not a suspect,” he says again. “I know you.”
I try to look away, but his eyes lock me in place. I know you. The trouble is, I have no doubt he knows me better than I know myself. And I’m still convinced that that knowledge could put us all in danger.
* * *
“What am I?” I asked.
Kingston and I were curled up in my tiny twin bed, the sheets tangled around us. Only a week had passed since Lilith’s porcelain-doll facade shattered and her demon-self, Kassia, set our show aflame. The new troupe members had acclimated themselves at a frighteningly quick pace, and everyone felt like one happy whole. The last few nights had brought bonfires with the tent crew and drinking games with the new Scandinavian acrobats. Everyone was “bonding.” Especially Melody and her new love interest, Sara. They seemed to be bonding on every available surface.
Kingston considered the question for a long time. I tilted my head and looked up at his jaw, refusing to move from my comfortable drape across his naked chest. Of everyone in the troupe, he was the person I trusted most, the one person who seemed to have a grip on what was going on. Even Mel was in the dark about what had happened that fateful night of Kassia’s madness.
Which meant if anyone besides Mab knew about me, it would be him.
“You’re you,” he finally said. I groaned. It wasn’t like I expected anything else; we’d had this conversation numerous times already.
He chuckled and ran a hand through my hair, massaging the base of my skull. If I were a cat, I’d have been purring in spite of his lame non-answer.
“That’s not helpful,” I muttered. “You didn’t see it. I was glowing.”
His chest rose and fell as he sighed.
“Mab doesn’t tell me everything, you know,” he finally said. Again, it wasn’t really an answer, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that it was the only answer I was going to get.
“But what if I’m dangerous?” I asked. It was so easy to remember that power, the way it felt to burn the fey with a blinding touch during the battle, even if I hadn’t been able to summon it again. It felt like ecstasy.
“You’re about the least dangerous person here,” he said. He nuzzled the top of my head. “Mab’s top hat is more dangerous than you.”
I bit my lip and squeezed my eyes shut.
I wanted him to be right. But I couldn’t help it; while everyone else in the troupe was bonding together, forming new friendships, and drinking themselves into a unified oblivion, I felt like I was even more an outsider than before, when I’d thought I was just a normal mortal.
Because after the battle and the fire, I knew I was something else. And that unknown something scared the hell out of me.
* * *
Kingston leaves the hill a little while later to go help with teardown. I stay on the hill, partly because I’m not actually of any use down there and partly because I’m still frustrated with his avoidance of any topic related to the murders. Am I seriously the only one here who’s worried about the Summer Court attacking again? Am I really the only one getting an ulcer from the idea that next time it’s going to be a hell of a lot more than an effigy set ablaze? I take deep breaths and try to calm my nerves, watching as the floodlights come on and the tent is slowly taken apart, panel by panel.
I’m actually starting to feel a little relaxed when the vision hits.
I barely notice it at first. There’s a low thrum like the sound of trucks on a distant highway, and that’s what I shrug it off as. Then the vibration gets louder. It rolls over me, sending shivers up my arms. But there’s no explosion of light and sound, not like the horrifying visions from when I touched Kassia. These visions are subtle: they don’t crash through me; they invade and subtly consume. I brace myself anyway. I can’t do anything else.
The hum changes to a high-pitched ring, one that blocks out the sound of the Shifters hammering down below and the wind in the trees. Just a ringing and the silence beneath it. Ringing, and then the sky turns to flame.
The blaze starts on the horizon. It sears into the sky, roils against the heavens, and turns the night red and orange and angry. My pulse races as I stare at the inferno, but that’s not what makes my breath catch. Not the light, no, but the shadows.
They peel themselves from the grass, ooze against the horizon. And as they congeal into shapes, the terror rises in my gut. They are the stuff of nightmares, but they’re not the Night Terrors of Mab’s army. These are beings pulled from hell itself, made of crackling brimstone and rage. They march. And below, in the valley, the trailers and tent go up in flames as the ringing in my head turns to screams, as the creatures tear the tent apart, as the demons rip the tent crew limb from limb.
Screaming, as a demon trudges up the hill.
Screaming as it towers above me and reaches out with burning claws and teeth of glass and razor.
I gasp.
And the vision shatters.
Melody stands in front of me, her head cocked to the side and one eyebrow raised. There aren’t any flames on the horizon, no demonic army ripping my world apart. No. Just like every other time, the visions leave no trace but a slight shake to my limbs and a queasiness in my gut.
They started the week after Oberos attacked. And they’re getting worse.
Melody has a bottle of wine in one fingerless-gloved hand. She’s one of those girls who looks like she should spend all of her time in some café in Prague or Paris, with her slight European features and pale skin, the elflike face and pixie-cut brown hair. But she also dresses like a reformed hippie. Tonight she’s in a patched coat and tweed trousers, her green combat boots worn and scuffed. So if she were in a café, it would have to be very bohemian.
“You okay?” she asks, one eyebrow raised.
I’m really hoping I didn’t scream out loud. I take a deep breath and shake it off. I haven’t told anyone about the visions. I know they’re not supposed to be happening, that they’re against my contract, which is precisely why I want to keep them secret: they let me know that Kingston hasn’t erased anything, that Mab’s hold on me is weakening.
I just wish I knew how to control the visions.
I wish I could stop seeing the world end.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just cold.” I pause. “How did you know I was up here?”
I really, really hope I di
dn’t scream.
She sits down beside me, pulls a corkscrew from the pocket of her coat, and opens the wine with deft fingers. The moon is thick and full above us, so even though it’s nearing midnight, her features are easy to see. Everything’s washed down to muted silvery tones, making the whole night seem even more otherworldly. A few more breaths and the nausea fades.
“Because you’re a loner,” she says. Then she looks at me and winks. “Also, Kingston told me.”
I roll my eyes and reach for the bottle that she hands over at the same moment, trying to keep down the fear from the vision. At least now that I’ve had a vision, I shouldn’t have another for a week. Hopefully.
“Strange show tonight,” she says. And it’s obvious she’s not talking about the acts themselves—they went smoothly, just as they always do. Another perk of the show’s magical proclivities.
“I know,” I say. “Any clue who did it yet?”
She shrugs and reaches for the wine. I take another drink before handing it back. Drinking helps calm the nerves, even when the subject isn’t the most comforting.
“You know Mab,” she says between sips, “if she does know anything, she’s not saying. One thing’s for certain, though. It ain’t from within the troupe.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask. My heart both lifts and drops at that statement. I’d been toying with the idea of mutinous performers ever since Kingston left—maybe one of the newbies was drafted into a contract they really weren’t happy with. I don’t think I’d like to see anyone in the show go postal.
On the other hand, if it’s not from within the troupe, it means Mab was right: It was the Summer Court. And war’s at hand. I think of the visions, of the smoke and monsters, and have a sick sort of dread thinking they’re related.