by Kat Cotton
Then he grabbed my arm, pulling me.
“Just a minute,” I told him. I was going nowhere in this state of undress. His gesturing let me know it was urgent. I’d barely pulled on a t-shirt when he dragged me out of the room. Lilly followed behind us. At least she had a robe to pull on.
“This had better be important,” Lilly said.
From the frantic nods of Nuno’s head, it seemed that way. Was someone injured? Earnest or one of the dogs? If that was the case, he’d be better off getting a first aid person.
Nuno opened the door to the loading bay. Wind whistled through the space, whipping around my bare legs. Wrapping my arms around myself, I hesitated in the doorway. Maybe I should run back and at least put on shoes.
Nuno grabbed me again then rushed up to a dumpster. What the hell? Lilly and I exchanged glances. Had Nuno gone crazy?
Something groaned behind the dumpster. I hurried across the loading dock to get a glimpse of a homeless guy wedged between the dumpster and wall.
Sure, the guy looked like he needed help. Definitely a shower and a good feed, but surely that could’ve waited. An extra five minutes to put on pants would’ve made no difference to him and I didn’t exactly want the homeless guy gawking at me half-naked.
Then that person groaned again and turned to face us.
It was no homeless person. It was Duke.
Chapter 12
I HELPED NUNO DRAG Duke back inside. We needed to get him out of here fast but he couldn’t walk and only made incoherent noises. From the smell of him, he hadn’t showered or washed the whole time he’d been gone.
Once we got him settled in the dressing room, Nuno indicated he’d finish packing up. I pulled on a pair of jeans and then got a wet towel to clean Duke up. Lilly helped me.
“Poor bastard,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness. “He’d hate to see himself like this.”
I hadn’t known Duke as long as she had but it was clear to anyone who’d met him, he was meticulous about his appearance. Duke sat complacently while we scrubbed the grime off him.
Lilly waved her hand in front of his eyes. “Dear me. The lights are on but there’s no one home, I’m afraid. I hope this isn’t permanent.”
I hoped so too. Someone bashed on the dressing room door and Duke flinched.
“You guys finished backing up the stage yet?” a voice yelled.
“We’re working on it,” Lilly said.
“Not too hard, obviously.”
I started after them, ready to tell them a thing or two but Lilly grabbed my wrist.
“Let it go,” she said. “Best not to draw attention to ourselves and Nuno will have things done in no time.”
She grabbed a hair brush and ran it through Duke’s hair, gently easing out the knots. She touched Duke in a way that people only do when they’re familiar with each other’s bodies. While I tried to be gentle about washing him, I touched him gingerly, needing to scrub to get the marks off but not wanting to hurt him and not wanting to get too close.
“He’s freezing cold,” I said. “He shouldn’t be this cold.
“He’ll warm up now he’s inside.”
I shook my head. “We should take him to the hospital. His temperature is really low.”
“Not possible,” Lilly said.
I’d finished cleaning Duke’s face but Lilly still brushed his hair.
“We have to do something,” I told her. “If not the hospital, then Nuno.”
Nuno had some kind of special healing powers. He’d used them on me when a demon had taken a whooping great chunk out of my leg. Surely he could fix Duke.
“Not for something like this. He can help with Duke’s legs but the mind thing is not his area.”
We’d cleaned up Duke’s face and hair by the time Nuno finished packing up the stage.
“Let’s get Duke to the van,” Lilly said. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”
I nodded but while Nuno and I tried to lift Duke, Earnest came into the dressing room. I expected him to be shocked to see Duke but he didn’t react. You’d have almost thought Duke hung out in our dressing room after every performance.
“What’s this?” he asked. “Where did he turn up?”
“We found him in the loading dock,” Lilly said.
“Looks like he’s been out on a bender,” Earnest said, then he chuckled. “A serious bender.”
I opened my mouth to speak but Lilly’s glare made me shut it again without a word.
Duke hadn’t been on a bender. Sure, he stunk but he didn’t smell of booze, just of not bathing. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d ditch his responsibilities like that, either. If anything, he took them way too seriously. It almost seemed like Earnest wanted to discredit Duke.
Then I remembered. Akira had said Earnest talked about getting a delivery tonight. Could he have meant Duke? But Earnest didn’t seem to want Duke back.
Earnest put his dogs back in their carriers.
“I’ll leave this to you,” he said to Lilly and rushed out as though it’d pain him to be around Duke for too long.
Once he was gone, Nuno and I took hold of Duke to take him to the van. He sure wasn’t easy to carry. He couldn’t move himself at all and become a dead weight.
Lilly grabbed our bags and followed up.
When we got to the van, I let go of Duke so Nuno could maneuver him into the back. The whole operation proved how weakened Duke was.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t take him to the hospital? It could be something serious.”
Nuno shook his head furiously.
“People like us don’t go to the hospital,” Lilly said. “We can look after him ourselves.”
I put my hand to his forehead. “His temperature is seriously too low.”
Lilly got in the back of the van and slid the door shut. She grabbed a blanket and put it over Duke.
“He’ll be fine,” she said.
I knew the three of them weren’t regular people. I had freaky powers and so did they. Since the night of our last performance, the way I’d dealt with that was by ignoring it. If I asked them no questions, I got the same consideration in return. So maybe that’s why they didn’t want to take him to the hospital. A medical examination could show up things they wanted to keep hidden. Or maybe it was just not wanting to have medical records. Even the DNA tests we’d done had produced no matches but medical records were a whole other thing.
Duke didn’t open his eyes on the drive back. He groaned a little when the van went over bumps. Lilly grabbed his hand and held it tight.
When we arrived back at the town house, Earnest hadn’t returned. Nuno went in the bathroom and turned on the shower then started undressing Duke. I blushed and looked away when I realized what Nuno was doing. Even if the job was too much for Nuno to handle on his own, I couldn’t assist him. Not with all the nudity.
Lilly tsked. “I guess I’ll have to help since Jayne is way too modest.”
To be honest, I didn’t see why she couldn’t help occasionally. The two of them peeled off Duke’s suit and shirt. At least Nuno kept Duke’s underwear on him until they got to the bathroom. Lilly came out, leaving Nuno to the showering.
“It’s not good,” she said. “Hopefully it’s just temporary. We’ve known each other a long time and I’ve never seen him sick a day in his whole life.”
I grabbed Duke’s discarded clothing. Even if I did nothing else, I could put them in the laundry.
“Don’t put that suit in the machine,” Lilly said. “It’s dry clean only.” Then she grabbed the suit from me and sniffed it. “Actually, we should just throw it out. He can get new clothes later.”
Strange that Nuno had included Duke’s stage props but not his clothes. We both stared at the suit as though it might tell us where Duke had been.
“You knew he’d be back. You had to have some idea where he was. It’s not a bender, like Earnest said.”
“Of course not. It’s a convenient story when so
meone goes missing. Earnest isn’t sure what he should say in front of you. None of us are. You aren’t one of us and —”
Before she could say any more, the door slammed. Earnest had returned. Lilly wouldn’t continue with what she was saying with Earnest around. Damn him. Couldn’t he have waited an hour or so?
“Where’s Duke?” Earnest asked.
He didn’t chuckle but smiled in a creepy way. Earnest had always creeped me out but after finding those blueprints in his room, I could hardly bare to speak to him.
“Shower,” Lilly said.
Earnest nodded. “We should have a meeting when he gets out.”
“We’ll be here,” Lilly replied. Then she got out a nail file. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere. Will there be food?”
Earnest left the room without replying. Lilly glared after him but didn’t reply. For some reason, she wanted to disguise her concern for Duke around Earnest.
Nuno led Duke back into the living room. Lilly and I jumped up off the sofa to make room for him.
Duke wore one of Nuno’s baggy t-shirts. It looked strange on Duke, almost as though he’d lost part of his personality. He prided himself on his vintage suits and dapper style.
Earnest came back in and grabbed a kitchen chair, placing it in front of the television in way intended to leave no doubt that he was in charge of this meeting.
“This is a very untoward happening,” he started.
“Well, not really,” Lilly said. “We knew Duke would be back, we just didn’t know when.”
Earnest’s glare moved from Lilly to me and back again as though implying she shouldn’t say that in front of me.
“Let’s get this cleared up,” I said. “I’m a member of this troupe and anything that needs to be said, can be said in front of me.”
Earnest gave a little shake of his head as though dismissing me. Before I could answer, Duke cleared his throat. We all turned to him, waiting for him to speak. But, after that initial sound, he slumped back, not talking.
“There’s not much to discuss really, is there?” Lilly didn’t look up from her nails. “Duke isn’t going to be performing for a while so you’ll see out the tour with us as planned.”
“He should get out of here. Return home. We’re all busy and we can’t look after him.”
“How can he return home?” I asked. “He can’t even get on a flight. He can barely walk.”
Earnest pursed his lips. “I’m sure they have staff who can deal with that kind of thing.”
“No, actually I don’t think they do. Unless he’s considered a medical emergency and, since everyone here seems opposed to taking him to the hospital, that’s not going to happen.”
Sometimes it seemed to me that Earnest didn’t live in the real world. He had no idea about practicalities. Anyone who’d ever flown could tell that Duke was in no state for that.
“We can’t take him to a doctor,” Earnest said.
“That means he can’t fly. Not unless one of us goes with him. Again, not a possibility. And who’ll look after him when he gets home? He’s not capable of looking after himself. He can’t shower, he can’t feed himself. He’d need a nurse.”
“He can stay,” Lilly said. “We can look after him. It’s better not to get other people involved.”
“You and Nuno can look after him,” Earnest said to her. “I can’t make the time. But I think we should get other people involved.”
That “other people” had been loaded with a significant I didn’t understand.
Lilly sighed. “Let’s see how things go for the next days before involving everyone else.
I wanted to scream. They talked in code, code that obviously was meant to shut me out.
“Fine but if he’s not showing an improvement in the next few days then we’ll take this further.” With that, Earnest left the room.
“We need to work out what happened,” I said. “There has to be some kind of clue as to where he’s been.”
Nuno handed me a crumpled bit of paper. I took it from him and smoothed it out.
“You found this on him?” I asked.
Nuno nodded.
My stomach clenched as I read the flier. This couldn’t be right. I wanted to screw the paper up again and throw it far from me. It might mean nothing but it was the only link we had. A link that shudder. It couldn’t be right. That link was for a place I never wanted to see again.
Mystique Circus.
The place I’d grown up.
Chapter 13
I GOT A MESSAGE FROM Larry that night. Their investigation into Lilly’s potential grandmother hadn’t turned up much. The dead woman been a burlesque dancer in the ‘20s, just like Lilly, but had died young with no children. Not her grandmother then. I got back to him to check. She might be an auntie, great auntie or some other relative. If she’d been a dancer too then Lilly would feel a connection with her.
Larry replied saying there was no other family.
A weird thought hit me, one I couldn’t share with Larry. The same name, the physical resemblance, the dancing. It was too strange to consider but then Lilly had told me she couldn’t die. Did that mean she didn’t age either? But then, why the grave? If it was possible for a person to be immortal then they wouldn’t be buried. Of course, if that was the case, the grave might be a decoy.
I couldn’t ask Lilly. You didn’t just blurt out a question like that.
I’d just put my burner phone away when Lilly knocked on my door.
“Nuno and I are going to check out that circus.”
I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. Just the mention of it made my body shake. I folded my hands, hoping Lilly didn’t notice.
“Don’t you want to come with us?” she asked. “It seems like something you’d want to be in on.”
Normally I would. And I should go with them, as part of the investigation and to satisfy my own curiosity, but the thought of going near that place made my body go into meltdown. If I’d even known they’d be in Brisbane at the same time as us, I’d have reconsidered this tour.
“Someone should stay with Duke,” I said. I hadn’t really thought about that and it wasn’t like he needed babysitting but it seemed a good excuse not to go.
Lilly nodded. “Okay, but you’ll be missing out on all the fun.”
“Be careful,” I said.
The circus would be closing up for the night by now and there’d be security around the place. Nothing sophisticated but a few guard dogs and a couple of staff itching for a fight would be more than a match for Lilly and Nuno.
Or not. Lilly and Nuno had strengths of their own.
After they’d gone, I went to check on Duke. He’d been put in the spare bed in Nuno’s room. The narrow single bed with the pirate themed bed linen just made him look more vulnerable.
From the way he breathed, I knew he slept. Not a peaceful sleep but better than nothing. As I entered the room, he mumbled something. I moved closer to the bed, thinking he might want water. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to go to the toilet. I sure as hell didn’t want to help him with that.
I put my hand to his forehead. He was still cold but not deathly cold like he’d been in the van. The room was warm enough and he had a thick blanket over him. I didn’t want to overheat him.
He reached out and grabbed my hand, holding it tight.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He mumbled again and I wasn’t sure what that meant but, when I tried to pull my hand away, he clutched it tighter.
Oh well, it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. I cleared a space on the bed and sat beside him. If it gave him a little comfort after what he’d been through then I’d sit with him a while.
He relaxed and his breathing became shallower. After a while, I shuffled around so I was next to him on the bed. That was more comfortable. Even if the bed was narrow, there was enough room for me. I rested my head on his pillow. It’d been a long day.
Earnest
shuffled around downstairs and he talked to his dogs in a low voice. I couldn’t hear what he said to them but it sounded like the usual dog talk, “good boy”, that type of thing.
Duke snuffled in closer to me. He let go of my hand and put his arm around me. I wasn’t even sure if he was aware of who I was or if he’d have acted the same regardless of who was beside him. I might just be a warm body to him.
As much as Lilly talked about my “thing” for Duke, I knew it wasn’t a thing. I’d kept my heart wrapped up tight all my life. I wasn’t about to let go of that now. I had too much at stake.
Still, letting him hold me like this for one night wouldn’t hurt. He probably wouldn't even remember it in the morning. I tried to keep my body away from his so we weren’t touching but that was impossible in the single bed.
He turned so his arm drooped across my belly. Like that, our bodies touched way too much. His hair brushed against my cheek and his body melded into mine.
Soon, Lilly and Nuno would be back and one of them could sit with him for a while. This was only for a short while and it meant nothing at all.
Since I had nothing else to do, I began singing him a song in a low voice. My singing wasn’t the greatest but he soon fell back to sleep. A peaceful sleep this time.
His grip loosened and I tried to move away but he grabbed me again. He seemed desperate to have someone to cling to. I settled back down beside him. How long would Nuno and Lilly be?
I’d never slept with a man. I’d had sex but sex but never actually spent the night, which seemed much more intimate than just going through motions of sex. I never wanted to wake up with someone else beside me. I never wanted to make awkward small talk. And I most definitely had never wanted something permanent. I’d spent more time throwing guys to the ground and apprehending them than snuggling with them.
Soon, my breathing fell into time with Duke’s. Our bodies touched side by side and I could feel his skin warm where we touched. He twitched a little in his sleep and I rubbed his arm until that settled.
I didn’t think I’d be able to fully relax but when I heard Lilly and Nuno return, they woke me from a deep sleep. I wanted to go out and ask what they’d found but I couldn’t force myself to move. My body was still asleep even if I’d woken.