The Immortal Circus: Final Act (Cirque des Immortels)

by Kahler, A. R.

“Just means we have more time to make it perfect,” he said. “Build the dream mansion, decide on our kids’ names…”

  “Kids?” I said, pushing away and looking at him. He was smiling, but there was something in his brown eyes that told me he wasn’t joking. “I’m not having kids.” And, sure enough, there was a flicker of disappointment in his expression, immediately masked with a performer’s skill.

  “Why not?”

  I shuddered. “The world’s overpopulated, we’re giving our kids a wasteland, being in labor sucks…which reason do you want?”

  “We wouldn’t have to stay here, you know. We could go somewhere else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are places set aside for people like us, those who were in service to the Fey. Lands of eternal sunlight and wine and song. It’s in the contract.”

  “I never read that.”

  He chuckled. “You didn’t read most of your contract, so that’s not saying much. It’s under the subsection labeled Retirement.”

  I settled against him once more.

  “So, you’re saying, what? We retire and move to faerieland and have a litter of children?”

  “I’ll even throw in a castle,” he murmured. “With a moat and a turret. Anything for you.”

  I grinned and said nothing, just let the idea of this new future take root in my heart. The sun was barely a fingernail on the horizon, a glint of gold against the oncoming dark. Kingston kissed me on the top of my head. He whispered something into my hair, something that sounded like “I love you.”

  A ray of glittering sunlight shifted. Light undulated.

  In a stream of shimmering gold, the sunlight swam through the air toward us. Only it wasn’t sunlight: it was Zal, Kingston’s familiar. The feathered serpent coiled in the air in front of us, sparks raining off it like dust. Kingston held out his hand and the familiar wrapped around his forearm, melding into flesh, gold bleeding into black ink.

  “You have to be careful,” he said as the familiar resumed its usual shape as a tattoo. Goose bumps raced over my skin as the final golden feather melded into his flesh. Those words were a crack in the memory, and suddenly I realized that that’s precisely what this was—a memory, an illusion. I stared at the Quetzalcoatl tattoo as it stared at me. “They’re coming.” And it wasn’t Kingston speaking, but the tattoo, its lips moving to reveal teeth sharp as razors.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The end,” Zal replied.

  I jerk awake at the sound of a car horn, my heart leaping into my chest as the truck stops with a jolt and Melody screams, “Deer!” But we’re not in a wreck. We’re stopped at a gas station in some half-formed highway town, and Mel’s giving me her best shit-eating grin.

  “Morning, sunshine,” she says. “Your turn to drive.”

  “You think you’re so funny,” I say. My hand is on my chest, my heart racing faster than the music on the radio.

  “Most of the time,” she says. “I’m going to piss. You need anything from inside?”

  I shake my head and lean back against the seat. When she’s gone, I take a deep breath and try to remember the daydream. I can’t summon anything beyond the sound of waves and the scent of Kingston’s cologne. That, and fear.

  * * *

  I slide from the cab to stretch while Melody fills the gas tank using one of the fleet credit cards. The sky is clear and the countryside stretches to eternity on all sides; the only buildings at this exit are the gas station and a diner on the opposite side of the road. Besides our caravan, the place is a ghost town. It feels like stepping onto the set of a horror movie, one rife with chainsaw-wielding serial killers and murderous crows. The gas-station door opens and Lilith skips out, holding a bag of cookies in one tiny hand. She grins at me as she passes by, and I realize that stepping into a horror movie would actually be a little less terrifying than the truth of my life. At least you can run away from chainsaws.

  I shake the thought from my head and go in to grab something to drink, my mind already idly devising the best possible coffee and creamer combination. The door opens again and Austin steps out. He pauses midstride.

  “Hey,” he says. He doesn’t meet my eye. Immediately, I feel guilt twisting around in my gut as Melody’s words filter through my memory. He came all the way here to find you…you barely even remember he existed.

  “Hey,” I say. “How’s the ride?”

  He shrugs. “Okay. Yvette’s been briefing me on the finer points of cotton-candy construction, so that’s super exciting.”

  I grin. Oddly enough, it’s not as forced as I thought it would be.

  “Listen,” I say. “Could we maybe talk later? I realize I was a little harsh last night. You showing up out of nowhere was kind of a shock.”

  He looks at me, then, and I can’t tell if he wants to smile or tell me to fuck off.

  “Shock seems to be on the menu, today,” he says. “But yeah. I’d like that.” He looks to the trucks, which are starting to rev back to life. “Better get going. I’ll see you later.”

  I nod and watch him go, feeling memories shift and bubble. Somewhere, deep down, I know I still love him. I know he’s still the one I wanted to grow old with. The more he’s around, the more I feel that connection trying to re-form, like a shattered bone that’s slowly stitching itself together, cell by miniscule cell. The slight bounce to his gait, the way his lip twitched into a smile, hell, even the way my body seems to instinctively lean toward him—they’re all pieces in a dance I know by heart but can’t find the rhythm to. He is a part of my past. Somehow, my body knows it. If only my heart could follow suit. But even as I watch him leave, I can’t summon that desire.

  All I can remember is Kingston’s cologne and the way he looked the moment before he died for me.

  * * *

  I nearly yelp when I slide into the driver’s side of the cab. Because it’s not just Melody sitting in there. Lilith’s wedged in the middle, the bag of cookies open in her lap and a dusting of crumbs forming a crop circle around her.

  “I wanted to ride in the big truck,” she says. I don’t close the door behind me. I look past Lilith’s ringlets and give Mel a questioning glance. She just shrugs, as if to say you’re in charge, and goes back to skimming through her MP3 player.

  “O…kay,” I say, because there’s really no way I can force her out. The rest of the trucks are already pulling onto the highway, and Lilith’s not really someone I want to insult. I also don’t think I could convince someone to take her if I tried—I’ve no doubt whoever I asked would delight in watching me suffer. Keep your friends close. “Just try not to get crumbs everywhere.”

  She nods sagely and brushes the crumbs off her navy-blue dress.

  The first twenty minutes of the drive are in silence except for the sound of music and the crunching of Lilith eating her cookies and getting crumbs everywhere but her dress. I glance over to see Mel with her cheek pressed against the window in a very unattractive smear, a snore escaping her open mouth. In that moment, I’d give anything for a camera.

  “Do you remember my promise?” Lilith asks. Even though it’s barely above a whisper, her words cut through the music. My skin grows cold. I say nothing and pray she’s just talking about the crumbs.

  “It was so long ago, but I hope you remember. I promised to make her suffer, if you defied me. I promised to tear your sister limb from limb.”

  I nearly pull the truck over to the curb. But I don’t. My knuckles go white on the steering wheel, and I stare straight ahead, refusing to look at her, terrified that I’ll see the demon cracking out from beneath her skin. Of course I remember Lilith’s promise, from before I even joined the show—her promise to destroy my sister, to make her suffer if I didn’t join Kassia’s fight.

  “What are you talking about?” I say, because for some reason, admitting that I remember it—that I have nightmares about it—would make it more real.

  “Your end is coming, Oracle. It is coming sooner than y
ou think. All this time, I have given you the opportunity to join me. We could have been royalty, you and I. We both burn. We both live for the blood of our victims. And yet you have done nothing but deny me. For that, I will make you suffer. And since you have taken your sister away from me, and your magician is sacrificed, I will be forced to take your lover.”

  Anger burns, and somewhere, deep down, a new sensation bubbles: the need to protect Austin in the way I know he tried to protect Claire and me. Like everything else surrounding him, my instinct is reflexive, knee-jerk, and the emotions the reaction should stem from are absent. But I know one thing: I’m not going to let her hurt him. He’s already gotten in deep enough because of me.

  “Leave him out of this.”

  “It’s too late, Oracle,” she says. “If you wanted to keep them safe, you would have joined me long ago. Now, I will make you watch him suffer. I could have been merciful. No more. You have brought his death upon yourself.”

  “Lilith, I swear to God if you hurt him—”

  She laughs again. “God will not save you. No god will. It’s just you and me, Oracle. You and me and my friends.”

  I glance at her, then. She’s still her normal creepy-as-sin-little-girl self, a cookie held forgotten in both hands like a squirrel. Her head is cocked toward me, her green eyes intent.

  “Friends?” I ask.

  Her smile is too large for her face; I jerk my attention back to the road to keep us from crashing.

  “Oh yes,” she says. “My friends are coming to play. You will meet them soon.”

  “Who are they, Lilith?” For some reason, I’m reminded of Oberon’s warning. My children…will make sure you burn with the rest of your troupe.

  Lilith says nothing, just chuckles to herself and begins humming “Ring Around the Rosy.”

  I want to ask Melody a thousand questions, want to see if there’s a correlation between Lilith’s elusive friends and Oberon’s nameless children—is Lilith in league with the Summer Court, now that Mab’s gone? But I can’t ask Mel anything, not now. I turn up the radio and drive into the sun. I can’t turn it up loud enough.

  * * *

  I don’t really know what I expect from a dinner date with Austin. A few hours after reaching the site, he and I head into town in silence. I don’t expect the sparks that seem to jolt through me every time the back of our hands touch, nor do I expect the awkward quiet that seems to stretch between us with every step. The only thing I did expect was the severe lack of dining choices; the little backwoods town doesn’t disappoint in that regard.

  My eyes keep flicking over the top of the menu at him as he reads through the options. The scent of grease and mozzarella stains the restaurant air along with the cigarette smoke still stuck in the cracked vinyl seats and green wallpaper. Italian wasn’t my first choice, but it was definitely my only choice, and seeing as the place is packed with locals, I’m praying it will be one of those hidden gems TV networks are always seeking out.

  Because, as we sit there without speaking, I have a feeling the food will be the only potential highlight of what I now realize was a horrible idea. The more I stare at him, the more I realize I want to be in love with him. He’s the one who protected me from my family when shit hit the fan, the one who let Claire and me stay over without asking too many questions. He would have defended me from my father, held all the old monsters at bay. And here we are, sitting in this crappy restaurant in this crappy town, and the air between us is so thick, so awkward, I want to crawl out of my skin and die.

  This is the man I shared my life with—shared my bed with—and I can’t even think of a single thing to talk about. I have the memories, the puzzle pieces; but they’re incomplete, the picture far from formed. The longer I sit here the more I realize that this is the man who once held the keys to my heart. And I’m only just beginning to remember why.

  Worse, the more I think about Austin, the more I realize I resent that his presence is pushing Kingston from my mind. Austin followed me here with no magic or agenda, just desire. And here I am, pushing him aside, putting him in danger. Betraying him, because I still can’t let Kingston go.

  “What are you thinking?” Austin asks. That’s when I realize I’m staring at the top of his head. His hair is so immaculate, like he just left a photo shoot.

  “I, um…”

  “To eat,” he says, raising his eyebrow.

  “Oh. Carbonara. I love me some pork.”

  He snickers and looks back to the menu. His eyes are so blue. “Well, at least that hasn’t changed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The grin slips.

  “You used to love it when I cooked you bacon for breakfast,” he says, and that little dagger in my heart gets another painful wrench.

  He cooked me breakfast?

  And there, with a flash, I can see it. It’s not like the visions of the future, with their fire and blood and brimstone. No, this vision is warm, shellacked with the amber of age. Me, stepping into the kitchen behind Austin, him wearing only jeans as he fries bacon and eggs; I laugh as I run my hand down his muscular back, whispering, “I won’t feel sorry for you if you burn yourself,” and he chuckles and points to the coffee pot. I shake my head and the vision sifts away, but it doesn’t disappear; it collects in the corner of my mind like a swathe of gold silk, brilliant and light and strong.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I brush a hand across my eyes. My fingers come away damp.

  “I…” I begin, and when I look at him my words lodge in my throat.

  Something cracks.

  Suddenly, it’s there. All of it. The two of us curled up on the sofa at three in the morning, talking about college and the future and how many acres our dream house would have. The touch of his skin pressed against mine, the covers twined around us like a knotted promise as our breath rose and fell to the sway of our hips. My bedroom a riot of red and pink on Valentine’s Day, every surface covered in roses and candy hearts and pink petals. Each of those petals is a memory, each rose a blossoming reminder, a heat that uncurls in my chest as it’s not just memory that returns, but feeling: all those feelings, an upturned bottle of love and pain and hope that pours through my veins in a flood stronger than magic, more binding than contracts.

  I gasp and his hand is on mine on the table between us, his eyes not leaving my face. His blue eyes, the eyes I peered into every night and every morning, the eyelids I kissed and the strong fingers that held me together when I couldn’t do it myself.

  “Viv,” he says, “what’s wrong?”

  For the first time in what seems like ages, the warmth running down my face and neck isn’t blood; it’s tears, and I’m not going to wipe them away.

  “I remember,” I say. The whole world seems to hold its breath and condense into this one moment, this one exchange. “I remember everything.”

  * * *

  Austin and I walk back to the site hand in hand.

  After the memories came back, we fell into a night of laughing and reminiscing, though it wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. Because underneath it all were three realizations: one, I still had feelings for Kingston; two, the life Austin and I wanted to build was moot in light of the show; and three, he didn’t remember I had a sister. Which meant he still didn’t know I was a murderer. And I had no idea how things would change if or when he remembered.

  Still, if there were some chance, any chance, that I could hold onto this feeling, this sense of happiness, of finally having someone who knew me for more than what I was onstage or in another life, I would clutch it as long as I could. I squeeze Austin’s hand tighter and lean into him, letting the familiarity replace the alienation from before. I still feel like a traitor to Kingston and things aren’t right between us, not entirely, not yet. But there’s hope—and that isn’t a feeling I’ve had for a very long time.

  “This town reminds me of when we tried to go camping,” he says, squeezing my hand.

  I chuckle.


  “Emphasis on tried. It doesn’t really count if you end up in a motel.”

  “Sort of like that one, actually,” he says, nodding to the motel beside us. The exterior is a faded teal, and the neon sign flickers lazily in the darkness.

  “So romantic. Still, it was better than sleeping in your truck.”

  “Well, if someone hadn’t forgotten to pack the sleeping bags…” he says. I nudge him in the ribs and he wraps me in a hug.

  We pause there, under the flickering neon, and my heart is flickering, too. My breath catches when he pulls back and looks down at me, brushes a strand of hair from my face.

  “I missed you,” he says. His thumb doesn’t leave my jaw and my pulse hammers in my veins.

  I don’t want to lie about missing him—after all, I never knew he was gone. I hesitate for only a second. Then I say the three words I never thought I’d whisper again.

  “I love you,” I say.

  He smiles. And when he leans in to kiss me, it feels like the first time all over again.

  When he finally breaks the kiss and steps back, he doesn’t let go, doesn’t let his hands slide from my skin.

  “I’m not going to lose you again,” he says. “I know there’s a lot going on I don’t understand. And I also know I’m more a liability than anything else. But I’ve found you. Finally. And even if we don’t make it out of this show alive, I’m just thankful I got to hold you again.”

  Tears swell at the corners of my eyes, and I draw him down for another kiss, this one filled with fire and pain and love and despair. Because his words shake me to the core, touch nerves I didn’t want to recognize. All the dreams he and I shared: leaving Michigan, getting a house, raising a family.…All of them are dead in the water. The future we craved is so far from the one we’ve been given, it feels like a nightmare.

  He must sense it, too. His lips are hard on mine. Even his tongue tastes like tragedy.

  Finally, with tears in our eyes, we pull away. He kisses the top of my head and together, we walk back toward the tent. Back toward the life we have to, somehow, impossibly, make work.