Flesh Circus jk-4

by Lilith Saintcrow

  What a lovely thought, Perry. Thanks. “Leave him alone.” I weighed the words, felt the need to add more. “I’ve just gotten used to his ugly face. I’d hate to have someone new to deal with.”

  Chapter Nine

  The ’breed named Helene had died in a gaudy tent painted with screaming-red broken-open pomegranates and big stalks of green vegetable. After a few moments I identified the green stuff as leeks, and weird creeping laughter crawled up my throat, was strangled, and died away. “So what was this Helene’s act?”

  “Fruit seller?” Saul piped up, and a great scalding wave of relief went through me. He sounded okay.

  Perry, a respectful distance away, actually sniggered. It was the sound of a popular kid in high school tittering in the back of the room. “Hermaphrodite.”

  Suddenly the leeks and pomegranates made sense. “A hermaphrodite hellbreed?”

  His bland blond face split in a wide grin. “Hell has its freaks too. Here is where they prove their worth.”

  Which was another lovely thought.

  Troy pushed aside the spangled curtain over the door-opening. “In h-here.”

  “A stuttering barker?” I had to know. “How did you—”

  He half-turned, his dusted eyes glittering sharply. “Step right up!” His face contorted, and a thin thread of cold slid down my back. Instead of a piping stammer, what came out was a rich, seductive baritone. “See the half-man, half-woman, all loveliness! Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!”

  I folded my arms. “That’s what you Traded for?”

  He shrugged. “H-Helene t-taught me. L-l-like s-s-s-singing. Sh-sh-she was n-n-n-n—”

  Oh, my God, is he about to say “nice”? Now I’ve heard everything.

  “Spare me your love song,” Perry cut in. “What happened?”

  For once I agreed with him, but I might’ve liked to hear more.

  “It was a s-slow n-night.” The Trader spoke very slowly, trying to enunciate each word clearly. “I w-was b-barking, b-but there were n-n-no t-t-takers. I w-was d-d-doing my b-best. F-first n-night’s always s-s-slow—”

  “Get. To the. Point.” Perry tapped his foot again.

  “Shut up and let him talk, Pericles.” This is going to take even longer if you keep making him nervous.

  “But of course, my dear. Anything for you.” The indigo still hadn’t left his whites, veining through like cracks in glazed porcelain. His suit fluttered slightly at the edges, white linen mouthed by the warm damp breeze redolent with the smell of fried grease.

  “She s-s-sc-screamed.” The Trader was pale as milk, his unreliable face twisting as he tried to get the words out. “I th-thought a r-r-r-rube was g-g-getting n-nasty. B-but they d-d-don’t usually. S-s-s-so I w-w-went in.” He shuddered, the movement rippling through his skinny frame. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “Th-th-there were b-b-bugs.”

  Bugs? “Flies? Or mosquitoes?”

  Hey, you can’t ever trust them to tell the truth.

  “R-r-roaches.” Another shudder. His red suspenders actually creaked. “All over. W-with r-red spots.” He ducked into the tent and I followed, Saul behind me as close as my shadow. I had a moment’s worth of worry—Perry was right behind my Were.

  Jesus. This is getting ridiculous.

  It certainly was.

  The smell hit me between one step and the next. They rot fast when they go, just like Traders. There was a wide greasy stain on the small strip of planking serving as a stage. The rest of the place was scattered with pillows and rugs, a bargain-basement impression of a harem helped along by the rusted glass-and-iron hookahs scattered around. Each pipe was at least four feet high, scalloped and decorated to within an inch of its life. Frayed tassels hung everywhere, and behind the stage hung a tapestry of trees and rivers that shifted, its stitches running over each other with a faint sound of needles against fabric.

  “It looks like a whorehouse,” Saul muttered, and I heartily agreed.

  “Have you been in one lately, cat?” Perry inquired sweetly.

  “Perry?” I checked the circuit of the tent, examined the stage’s raw lumber. Three red satin cushions were covered in thin black gunk dried to a crust.

  “Yes, my dear?” Silky-smooth, but he didn’t look at me.

  “Shut the fuck up.” I inhaled deeply, wished I hadn’t. Under the reek of sex, tobacco, and marijuana lay the rusted-copper tang of blood and a breath of… what was that?

  Cigar smoke. Candy. And rum. It was very faint, fading even as I inhaled deeply again, trying to catch another whiff. Now that’s interesting.

  “I was only asking.” Perry eased into the tent, his lip curling. “Such petty games played here.”

  “As opposed to the ones played out at the Monde?” It was my turn to inquire sweetly. “If you’re not going to be helpful, you can wait outside.”

  His tongue flickered over white teeth, a flash of wet cherry-red. “I can be singularly helpful, for your sake.”

  Oh, I’ll just bet. “Good. You’re going to stay here and keep an eye on the hostage. I’ve got other business tonight.”

  “I might have business too.”

  The scar turned hot, and a spill of poisonous delight threaded up my arm. “Too bad. Now that you’ve seen the crime scene, you can run along.”

  “Dismissed by my lady.” He sighed, but the scar tweaked.

  So he was getting to the point of pulling my chain, was he? Hellbreed hate being outfoxed, and they hate being outfoxed by their own cleverness even more. If Perry hadn’t been so eager to use a measure of what he thought was his newfound psychological leverage on me, he wouldn’t have lost every bit of his hold—including the ironclad agreement to have me in every month. My time for his power; that had been the deal—and when he welshed, it was his power for nothing.

  Except I had to step carefully, or I would get trapped again. And he would make me pay for every insult I offered him.

  Still, that wasn’t a reason not to twit him while I could. And I wanted him out of the way for the next ten minutes. The stuttering Trader looked ready to die from fright, and couldn’t get out a coherent sentence.

  I understood. I didn’t sympathize, but I completely understood.

  “I’m not your lady or your hunter, Pericles. I’m the hunter of Santa Luz and I’m telling you to keep a close watch on the Ringmaster and that hostage. You’re responsible for their good behavior. And not so incidentally, for the hostage’s continued survival.” I was apparently staring at the stain on the stage. My attention was all on him, though. The Trader crouched with his face level to the planking, peeping up at the red satin pillows like a kid looking through the banister for Santa Claus. “Now be a good little hellspawn and run along.”

  The air tightened, and I wondered if this was going to be the time that Perry pushed it. It was getting more and more likely the longer this went on.

  But apparently, he was just as invested in keeping the Cirque under wraps as I was. I was banking on that. So often, I was banking on the flimsiest things to keep him from seriously fucking around with me.

  It is the woman, has the advantage in situations like this, milaya. You just remember that. Mikhail’s voice, a memory equal parts pleasure and pain.

  I was hoping, like always, that it was true.

  “Very well,” Perry finally said. “Happy hunting, my dear. I expect this… situation… to be resolved shortly.”

  “The longer you stand here jawing, the less likely that is.” Unless you’ve got some elegant little finger in this pie, which is very possible. I’m not ruling anything out.

  But still… voodoo. The one thing pretty much no hellbreed would be involved in.

  Perry’s presence leached out of the room slowly, like an invisible heavy gas. The Trader still crouched, peering up at the stage, and I sighed.

  “So, this Helene. Did she have any enemies?” I was fully aware of the irony of the question.

  “O-only th-the u-usual.” The stammer did get b
etter with Perry out of the room. The ferret-faced blond shot me a glance that could have meant anything. “You’re n-not going to l-look for whoever d-d-did this.”

  “Are you kidding? Of course I am.” I studied the stage again, and suddenly saw how Helene probably lay down—in a way guaranteed to show off the goods to the maximum number of people in the room. “Was she between showings? In here alone?”

  “N-no. Th-there were r-rubes. Not very m-many.” He was damn near peppy with Perry out of the picture, and I suddenly thought I liked him better when he was scared. The self-serving little weasel glint in Trader eyes always makes me want to reach for a weapon.

  It’s that same weasel glint I used to see in my mother’s eyes when one of her boyfriends was on the rampage. A cold calculation—how much can I get? How can I use something else to get out of this? What’s in it for me?

  “Sh-she was just a ’b-b-breed. I know what y-you h-hunters are l-like.”

  You do, huh? Well. That’s nice. “Is that so.” There were tiny pinpricks dotting out from the stain in random twin loops—cockroach tracks. They stopped cold about two feet from the body.

  Little skittering roach-tracks. Did they vanish in a puff of green smoke too?

  “So what did the… the rubes see? Any of them still around?” Did any of them get home safe, either?

  “D-d-don’t kn-know. Was b-busy trying to g-get the b-b-b-bugs—” His face flushed. “Bugs. Away.”

  “Did the bugs do that?” I pointed at the stain. “Was she making any sound? Choking?”

  “S-screaming. And th-they r-ripped h-her ap-p-part. N-n-not m-much l-left.”

  I questioned him a little more, but he either knew nothing or covered it really well. The way he crouched right next to the stage was unnerving, and the story was even more so. Bugs descending out of nowhere, and an invisible force ripping a hellbreed to pieces? Or strangling a Trader?

  There may have been a time when I might’ve decided to let that pass. But if the hostage ended up biting it… it just didn’t bear thinking about. The Cirque would explode out of its boundaries, and I’d have a hell of a time getting things back under control again.

  Get it, Jill? A Hell of a time? Arf arf.

  Whoever was doing this probably had a beef with hellbreed or the right idea. But they were going about it in exactly the wrong way.

  Chapter Ten

  Thank God,” Eva said as I muscled up through the attic trapdoor, her dark eyes widening with relief.

  She says that every time I show up. It’s kind of nice to hear.

  She nodded at Saul, her tiny gold ball earrings flashing. She used to wear hoops until they almost got torn off her head five times in a row during exorcisms.

  She’s stubborn like that.

  Eva’s black bangs were disarranged, and her suit jacket was torn. It hadn’t been any trick finding her here—the victim was still making enough noise to be heard on the street outside. Fortunately (or not), here at the edge of the barrio nobody paid much attention. It wasn’t like her to look so mussed, though. She’s usually neat as a pin. While Avery, Wallace, and Benito often go in guns blazing, Eva depends more on outsmarting and leverage.

  When you’re short even compared to me, I guess that’s the better way to go. Of course, Mikhail probably trained me because I tend to go in guns blazin’ too. Call it a character quirk.

  Hey, when you’ve got a hellbreed mark, firepower, and a serious rage problem, leverage and tact lose a lot of their charm.

  “What the hell do you have here?” I looked past her and saw something familiar—a human shape on a pair of stacked mattresses, writhing around under a sausage-casing of leather restraints. And babbling in something that sounded very familiar, too—not the grumbling of töng, but a lyrical rolling song.

  “Guy’s wife called 911, said he was going weird. The black-and-whites called me in, since he was holed up in the attic and chanting.”

  “It wasn’t Jughead Vanner, was it?”

  She gave me a look that could qualify both as amused and what the hell? “No, it was Connor and the Pole. I sent them both on and the wife’s at her mother’s. She asked if we could help him, I said I wasn’t sure.”

  Safe answer. “Huh. Did he go to church?”

  “Nope. She does. Sacred Grace. Rourke’s her confessor. There are a couple of indicators, but not enough to red-flag our boy. I’m stumped.”

  Saul’s lip lifted at the mention of Rourke. He was on the ladder leading up into the attic, his shoulders barely clearing the small entrance. He hadn’t said a word since we left the Cirque. It was quiet even for him, and I suspected trouble.

  First things first, though.

  Huh. I still hadn’t really spoken to any of the priests at Sacred Grace since the last incident with the Sorrows. I had decided, after much reflection, not to tear the whole fucking place apart to find anything else Father Gui and his happy band of priests was hiding from me. I hadn’t forgiven Gui yet, but I hadn’t stopped doing exorcisms for them either.

  There was being justifiably angry over them hiding necessary information from me, and then there was being stupid.

  “Does she bring home novenas?” I stepped past Eva, clearing the way for Saul to come up.

  “Yup. There’s a whole clutch of them on the mantel downstairs. The husband’s supposed to be irreligious, which is a surprise. Part of why I called you. And Avery said—”

  “Yeah, Avery. How are you two?”

  “He’s good.” She didn’t blush, but she did smile slightly, an ironclad grimace. On her pretty, wide-cheeked face, it was amazing. She has delicate fingers and a strong nose, and is built like a gymnast. It probably helps when she’s wrestling Possessors. Of all of my standard exorcists, Avery comes closest to having the qualities necessary for a hunter, but Eva is the one who thinks fastest—and most thoroughly—on her feet. And she’s also the calmest. She paints eggshells a la Fabergé to relax, I’m told. It’s exactly the sort of finicky, delicate thing I’d expect her to do. “This doesn’t feel like a Possessor.”

  It probably isn’t. “Good call. Got a mirror?”

  “Of course.” She wasn’t male, so she didn’t bother with useless questions. She just dug in her black bag—exorcists favor the old medical bags, since they’re just the right size and can be dropped in a hurry—and fished out a hand mirror. “The victim’s Trevor Watson. Male, African American. Forty-three, works as an orderly out at Henderson Hill. Likes beer, soft pretzels, and his wife. The marriage seems happy, the financial side stable but not luxurious by any stretch. Scratchin’ is what the wife called it. She’s Hispanic, thirty-eight, registered nurse.”

  “He works at Henderson?” That was interesting. Mental institutions can sometimes lead to cross-contamination in possession cases. Not as often as you think, though—plenty of people in institutions are indigent, and Possessors don’t go for that.

  “Yeah. The new one.” It went without saying, but she said it anyway.

  Our eyes met. I suppressed a shiver at the thought of the old asylum. It wasn’t a nice place for anyone with a degree of psychic talent, and I’d chased an arkeus or two up into its cold, haunted halls. Nobody worked up at the old Henderson Hill but an old, half-blind, mute caretaker who didn’t care what happened as long as he could sit in the boiler room with his quart of rye. He seemed more a fixture of the place than the old furnace itself, and I’d given up wondering exactly what he was, since he didn’t interfere with any case that took me up there.

  The man on the mattresses writhed and gurgled. “He chewed through a gag,” Eva said helpfully. “I was worried until nothing happened.”

  Since Possessors—and loa—can snap curses at an exorcist with a victim’s mouth, I didn’t blame her. “Reasonable of you. How did the mattresses get up here?”

  “I don’t know. The wife said they never used the attic.”

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  Saul lifted himself up from the steps. “Smells like the other one, Jill
.”

  I stopped, gave him a quizzical look. “Really?”

  “Cigars. And candy.” He sniffed, inhaling deeply, tasting the air. “An orange-y perfume.”

  “Florida water?” I hazarded. It was a reasonable guess.

  “Could be. But there’s a lot of sugar. Like cookies.”

  Huh. Even with my senses amped up and the scar naked to the open air, I smelled nothing but dust, fiberglass insulation, and the remains of a recent fried chicken. “Well.”

  “Bruuuuuja,” the victim crooned. “Ay, bruuuuja! Come heee-eeere.”

  Eva actually jumped. “What the—”

  I shushed her. Jesus. This can’t be what I think it is.

  “Bruuuuuuja!” A long, drawn-out sigh. The voice was eerie, neither male nor female, a sweet high piping. “We want to talk to you!”

  “Madre de Dios.” Eva crossed herself.

  Amen to that, I thought. “Leave your bag. Go downstairs and start saying Hail Marys. Saul—”

  “Not going anywhere.” Saul folded his arms as Eva brushed past him. She didn’t even argue—another thing I could be thankful for. Sometimes a civilian will try to protest or object or something.

  My mouth was dry. “If he gets loose, keep him from getting downstairs. Got it?”

  He nodded, his eyes lighting up. I liked seeing that, and wished I had time to ask him what was going on with him. A good hour or so to worm out what was bothering him and maybe get somewhere would have been nice.

  But duty always calls. I dug in Eva’s bag until I came up with a taper candle and a mini-bottle of blessed wine. Father Gui blesses these tiny bottles in job lots, having a dispensation from high-up in the Vatican to perform some of the, ahem, older blessings.

  It wasn’t rum or tequila, but it would do. The victim started moaning again, and I uncapped the bottle. It was a moment’s work to stare at the candle wick, the scar prickling with etheric energy bleeding down a vein-map into my fingertips, until the waxed linen sparked and bloomed with orange flame.