Circus of the Damned abvh-3

by Laurell Hamilton

  We stood there a minute in the empty graveyard. The only sounds were the wind sighing high up in the trees and the melancholy song of the year’s last crickets. In Charlotte’s Web, the crickets sang, “Summer is over and gone. Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.” The first hard frost, and the crickets would be dying. They were like Chicken Little, who told everyone the sky was falling; except in this case, the crickets were right.

  The crickets stopped suddenly like someone had turned a switch. I held my breath, straining to hear. There was nothing but the wind, and yet… My shoulders were so tight they hurt. “Larry?”

  He turned innocent eyes to me. “What?”

  There, three trees to our left, a man’s figure was silhouetted against the moonlight. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, on the right side. More than one. The darkness felt alive with eyes. More than two.

  I used Larry’s body to shield me from the eyes, drawing my gun, holding it along my leg so it wouldn’t be obvious.

  Larry’s eyes widened. “Jesus, what’s wrong?” His voice was a hoarse whisper. He didn’t give us away. Good for him. I started herding him towards the cars, slowly, just your friendly neighborhood animators finished with their night’s work and going home to a well-deserved rest.

  “There are people out here.”

  “After us?”

  “After me, more likely,” I said.

  “Why?”

  I shook my head. “No time for explanations. When I say run, run like hell for the cars.”

  “How do you know they mean to hurt us?” His eyes were flashing a lot of white. He saw them now, too. Shadows moving closer, people out in the dark.

  “How do you know they don’t mean to hurt us?” I asked.

  “Good point,” he said. His breathing was fast and shallow. We were maybe twenty feet from the cars.

  “Run,” I said.

  “What?” his voice sounded startled.

  I grabbed his arm and dragged him into a run for the cars. I pointed the gun at the ground, still hoping whoever it was wouldn’t be prepared for a gun.

  Larry was running on his own, puffing a little from fear, smoking, and maybe he didn’t run four miles every other day.

  A man stepped in front of the cars. He brought up a large revolver. The Browning was already moving. It fired before my aim was steady. The muzzle flashed brilliant in the dark. The man jumped, not used to being shot at. His shot whined into the darkness to our left. He froze for the seconds it took me to aim and fire again. Then he crumpled to the ground and didn’t get up again.

  “Shit.” Larry breathed it like a sigh.

  A voice yelled, “She’s got a gun.”

  “Where’s Martin?”

  “She shot him.”

  I guess Martin was the one with the gun. He still wasn’t moving. I didn’t know if I killed him or not. I wasn’t sure I cared, as long as he didn’t get up and shoot at us again.

  My car was closer. I shoved car keys into Larry’s hands. “Open the door, open the passenger side door, then start the car. Do you understand me?”

  He nodded, freckles standing out in the pale circle of his face. I had to trust that he wouldn’t panic and take off without me. He wouldn’t do it out of malice, just fear.

  Figures were converging from all directions. There had to be a dozen or more. The sound of running feet whispering on grass came over the wind.

  Larry stepped over the body. I kicked a .45 away from the limp hand. The gun slid out of sight under the car. If I hadn’t been pressed for time, I’d have checked his pulse. I always like to know if I’ve killed someone. Makes the police report go so much smoother.

  Larry had the car door open and was leaning over to unlock the passenger side door. I aimed at one of the running figures and pulled the trigger. The figure stumbled, fell, and started screaming. The others hesitated. They weren’t used to being shot at. Poor babies.

  I slid into the car and yelled, “Drive, drive, drive!”

  Larry peeled out in a spray of gravel. The car fishtailed, headlights swaying crazily. “Don’t wrap us around a tree, Larry.”

  His eyes flicked to me. “Sorry.” The car slowed from stomach-turning speed to grab-the-door-handle-and-hold-on speed. We were staying between the trees; that was something.

  The headlights bounced off trees; tombstones flashed white. The car skidded around a curve, gravel spitting. A man stood framed in the middle of the road. Jeremy Ruebens of Humans First stood pale and shining in the lights. He stood in the middle of a flat stretch of road. If we could make the turn beyond him, we’d be out on the highway and safe.

  The car was slowing down.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I can’t just hit him,” Larry said.

  “The hell you can’t.”

  “I can’t!” His voice wasn’t outraged, it was scared.

  “He’s just playing chicken with us, Larry. He’ll move.”

  “Are you sure?” A little boy’s voice asking if there really was a monster in the closet.

  “I’m sure; now floor it and get us out of here.”

  He pressed down on the accelerator. The car jumped forward, rushing toward the small, straight figure of Jeremy Ruebens.

  “He’s not moving,” Larry said.

  “He’ll move,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me.”

  His eyes flicked to me, then back to the road. “You better be right,” he whispered.

  I believed Ruebens would move. Honest. But even if he wasn’t bluffing, the only way out was either past him or through him. It was Ruebens’s choice.

  The headlights bathed him in glaring white light. His small, dark features glared at us. He wasn’t moving.

  “He isn’t moving,” Larry said.

  “He’ll move,” I said.

  “Shit,” Larry said. I couldn’t have agreed more.

  The headlights roared up onto Jeremy Ruebens, and he threw himself to one side. There was the sound of brushing cloth as his coat slid along the car’s side. Close, damn close.

  Larry picked up speed and swung us around the last corner and into the last straight stretch. We spilled out onto the highway in a shower of gravel and spinning tires. But we were out of the cemetery. We’d made it. Thank you, God.

  Larry’s hands were white on the steering wheel. “You can ease down now,” I said. “We’re safe.”

  He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it, then nodded. The car started gradually approaching the speed limit. His face was beaded with sweat that had nothing to do with the cool October evening.

  “You all right?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice sounded sort of hollow. Shock.

  “You did good back there.”

  “I thought I was going to run over him. I thought I was going to kill him with the car.”

  “He thought so, too, or he wouldn’t have moved,” I said.

  He looked at me. “What if he hadn’t moved?”

  “He did move.”

  “But what if he hadn’t?”

  “Then we would have gone over him, and we’d still be on the highway, safe.”

  “You would have let me run him down, wouldn’t you?”

  “Survival is the name of the game, Larry. If you can’t deal with that, find another business to be in.”

  “Animators don’t get shot at.”

  “Those were members of Humans First, a right-wing fanatic group that hates anything to do with the supernatural.” So I was leaving out about the personal visit from Jeremy Ruebens. What the kid didn’t know might not hurt him.

  I stared at his pale face. He looked hollow-eyed. He’d met the dragon, a little dragon as dragons go, but once you’ve seen violence, you’re never the same again. The first time you have to decide, live or die, us or them, it changes you forever. No going back. I stared at Larry’s shocked face and wished it could have been different. I wished I could have kept him
shining, new, and hopeful. But as my Grandmother Blake used to say, “If wishes were horses, we’d all ride.”

  Larry had had his first taste of my world. The only question was, would he want a second dose, or would he run? Run or go, stay or fight, age-old questions. I wasn’t sure which way I wanted Larry to choose. He might live longer if he got the hell away from me, but then again maybe he wouldn’t. Heads they win, tails you lose.

  Chapter 21

  “What about my car?” Larry asked.

  I shrugged. “You’ve got insurance, right?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Since they couldn’t trash us, they may decide to trash your car.”

  He looked at me as if he wasn’t sure whether I was kidding. I wasn’t.

  There was a bicycle in front of us suddenly, out of the dark. A child’s pale face flashed in the headlights. “Watch out!”

  Larry’s eyes flicked back to the road in time to see the kid’s wide, startled eyes. The brakes squealed, and the child vanished from the narrow arch of lights. There was a crunch and a bump before the car skidded to a stop. Larry was breathing heavy; I wasn’t breathing at all.

  The cemetery was just on our right. We were too close to stop, but… but, shit, it was a kid.

  I stared out the back window. The bicycle was a crumpled mess. The child lay in a very still heap. God, please don’t let him be dead.

  I didn’t think Humans First had enough imagination to have a child in reserve as bait. If it was a trap, it was a good one, because I couldn’t leave the tiny figure crumpled by the road.

  Larry was gripping the steering wheel so hard his arms shook. If I thought he’d been pale before, I’d been wrong. He looked like a sick ghost.

  “Is he… hurt?” His voice squeezed out deep and rough with something like tears. It wasn’t hurt he’d wanted to say. He just couldn’t bring himself to use the big “D” word. Not yet, not if he could help it.

  “Stay in the car,” I said.

  Larry didn’t answer. He just sat there staring at his hands. He wouldn’t look at me. But, dammit, this wasn’t my fault. The fact that he’d lost his cherry tonight was not my fault. So why did it feel like it was?

  I got out of the car, Browning ready in case the crazies decided to chase us onto the road. They could have gotten the .45 and be coming to shoot us.

  The child hadn’t moved. I was just too far away to see the chest rise and fall. Yeah, that was it. I was maybe a yard away.

  Please be alive.

  The child lay sprawled on its stomach, one arm trapped underneath, probably broken. I scanned the dark cemetery as I knelt by the child. No right-wing crazies came swarming out of the darkness. The child was dressed in the proverbial little boy’s outfit of striped shirt, shorts, and tiny running shoes. Who had sent him out dressed for summer on this cold night? His mother. Had some woman dressed him, loved him, sent him out to die?

  His curly brown hair was silken, baby-fine. The skin of his neck was cool to the touch. Shock? It was too soon to be cold from death. I waited for the big pulse in his neck, but nothing happened. Dead. Please, God, please.

  His head raised up, and a soft sound came out of his mouth. Alive. Thank you, God.

  He tried to roll over but fell back against the road. He cried out.

  Larry was out of the car, coming towards us. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s alive,” I said.

  The boy was determined to roll over, so I grabbed his shoulders and helped. I tried to keep his right arm in against his body. I had a glimpse of huge brown eyes, round baby face, and in his right hand was a knife bigger than he was. He whispered, “Tell him to come help move me.” Tiny little fangs showed between baby lips. The knife pressed against my stomach over the sport bag. The point slid underneath the leather jacket to touch the shirt underneath. I had one of those frozen moments when time stretches out in slow-mo nightmare. I had all the time in the world to decide whether to betray Larry, or die. Never give anyone to the monsters; it’s a rule. I opened my mouth and screamed, “Run!”

  The vampire didn’t stab me. He just froze. He wanted me alive; that’s why the knife and not fangs. I stood up, and the vampire just stared up at me. He didn’t have a backup plan. Great.

  The car stood, open doors spilling light out into the darkness. The headlights made a wide theatrical swash. Larry was just standing there, frozen, undecided. I yelled, “Get in the car!”

  He moved towards the open car door. A woman was standing in the glare of the headlights. She was dressed in a long white coat open over the cream and tan of a very nice pants suit. She opened her mouth and snarled into the light, fangs glistening.

  I was running, screaming, “Behind you!”

  Larry stared at me; his gaze went past me. His eyes widened. I could hear the patter of little feet behind me. Terror spread across Larry’s face. Was this the first vampire he’d ever seen?

  I drew my gun, but was still running. You can’t hit shit when you’re running. I had a vampire in front and behind. Coin toss.

  The female vampire bounded onto the hood of the car and propelled herself in a long, graceful leap that carried her into Larry and sent them tumbling across the road.

  I couldn’t shoot her without risking Larry. I whirled at the last second and put the gun point-blank into the child-vampire’s face.

  His eyes widened. I squeezed the trigger. Something hit me from behind. The shot went wild and I was on the road, flat on my stomach with something bigger than a bread box on top of me.

  The air was knocked out of me. But I turned, trying to point the gun back at the thing on my back. If I didn’t do something now, I might never have to worry about breathing again.

  The boy came up on me, knife flashing downward. The gun was turning, but too slowly. I would have screamed if I’d had air. The knife buried into the sleeve of my jacket. I felt the blade bite into the road underneath. My arm was pinned. I squeezed the trigger and the shot went harmlessly off into the dark.

  I twisted my neck to try to see who, or what, was straddling me. It was a what. In the red glow of the rear car lights his face was all flat, high cheekbones with narrow, almost slanted eyes and long, straight hair. If he’d been any more ethnic, he’d have been carved in stone, surrounded by snakes and Aztec gods.

  He reached over me and encircled my right hand, the one that was pinned, the one that was still holding the gun. He pressed the bones of my hand into the metal. His voice was deep and soft. “Drop the gun or I’ll crush your hand.” He squeezed until I gasped.

  Larry screamed, high and mournful.

  Screaming was for when you didn’t have anything better to do. I scraped my left sleeve against the road, baring my watch and the charm bracelet. The three tiny crosses glinted in the moonlight. The vampire hissed but didn’t let go of my gun hand. I dragged the bracelet across his hand. A sharp smell of burning flesh; then he used his free hand to drag at my left sleeve. Holding onto just the sleeve, he held my left hand back, so I couldn’t touch him with the crosses.

  If he’d been the new dead, just the sight of the crosses would have sent him screaming; but he wasn’t just old dead, he was ancient. It was going to take more than blessed crosses to get him off my back.

  Larry screamed again.

  I screamed, too, because I couldn’t do anything else, except hold onto the gun and make him crush my hand. Not productive. They didn’t want me dead, but hurt, hurt was okay. He could crush my hand into bloody pulp. I gave up my gun, screaming, tugging at the knife that held my arm pinned, trying to jerk my left sleeve free of his hand so I could plunge the crosses into his flesh.

  A shot exploded above our heads. We all froze and stared back at the cemetery. Jeremy Ruebens and company had recovered their gun and were shooting at us. Did they think we were in cahoots with the monsters? Did they care who they shot?

  A woman screamed, “Alejandro, help me!” The scream was from behind us. The vampire on my back was suddenly gone. I didn
’t know why, and I didn’t care. I was left with the child-monster looming over me, staring at me with large dark eyes.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” he asked.

  It was such an unexpected question that I answered it. “No.”

  He looked disappointed. He squatted down beside me, hands on his small thighs. “I meant to cut you so I could lick the blood.” His voice was still a little boy’s voice, would always be a little boy’s voice, but the knowledge in his eyes beat down on my skin like heat. He was older than Jean-Claude, much older.

  A bullet smashed into the rear light of my car, just above the boy’s head. He turned towards the fanatics with a very unchildlike snarl. I tried to pull the knife out of the road, but it was imbedded. I couldn’t budge it.

  The boy crawled into the darkness, vanishing with a backwash of wind. He was going for the fanatics. God help them.

  I looked back over my shoulder. Larry was on the ground with a woman with long, waving brown hair on top of him. The man who’d been on top of me, Alejandro, and another woman were struggling with the vampire on Larry. She wanted to kill him, and they were trying to stop her. It seemed like a good plan to me.

  Another bullet whined towards us. It didn’t come close. A half-strangled scream, and then no more gunshots. Had the boy gotten him? Was Larry hurt? And what the hell could I do to help him, and me?

  The vampires seemed to have their hands full. Whatever I was going to do, now was the time. I tried unzipping the leather jacket left-handed, but it stuck halfway down. Great. I bit the side of the jacket, using my teeth in place of the trapped hand. Unzipped; now what?

  I pulled the sleeve off my left hand with my teeth, then put the sleeve under my hip and wiggled out of it. Slipping my right hand free of the pinned sleeve was the easy part.

  Alejandro picked up the brown-haired woman and threw her over the car. She sailed into the darkness, but I didn’t hear her hit the ground. Maybe she could fly. If she could, I didn’t want to know.

  Larry was nearly lost to sight behind a curtain of pale hair. The second female was bending over him like a prince about to bestow the magic kiss. Alejandro got a handful of that long, long hair and jerked her to her feet. He flung her into the side of the car. She staggered but didn’t go down, snapping at him like a dog on a leash.