Flesh Circus jk-4

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Emerson Sloane’s files were very thin. The big Santa Luz fire of 1938 had eaten most of the records he’d left, one way or another. A bare triple-handful of manila folders labeled in a round Palmer script, some with notations in Mikhail’s broad firm hand with its Cyrillic notations followed by English translations.

  I flipped through them. About twenty had no connection to anything remotely resembling the current clusterfuck we were looking at. My pager went off; I dug in my pocket and pulled out the other thirteen files that looked promising.

  I gave my pager a cursory glance. It was the Badger. Maybe she had something for me.

  “Do you still want me?” The words just burst out of Saul and hung in midair.

  It was like being punched in the gut. I sucked in dust and paper-laden air. The dead quiet of the bookstore closed around the sound, and my hands went nerveless for about half a second. I almost dropped the files.

  “Of course I do,” I told the hole in the floor. “I always have. What the fuck?”

  “My family’s gone.” It was a simple statement of fact. “My mother’s dead. Billy Ironside killed my sister. My mother’s sisters are… well, I’m not theirs. They have their own cubs. If I didn’t have a mate, it’d be different. But…”

  “But there’s me. And I’m not a Were.” There it was, half the dysfunction in our relationship laid out in plain words. The other half didn’t need to be spoken. I’m tainted. I’ve got a hellbreed mark on my wrist and a serious rage problem. I’m not a nice person, Saul. I’m not even a good person, despite your thinking so. I’m a hunter. End of story.

  “I don’t care what you are,” he answered quietly. “You need me, Jill. You’d kill yourself over this if someone wasn’t reminding you…”

  “Reminding me of what?” I flipped through the first file, scanned it. No connection. The second, too. My eyes were hot and grainy, and I was hoping I wouldn’t miss anything. My heart was a lump in my throat, the words had to squeeze around it.

  Five little words. “That you’re worth a damn.”

  Mikhail was the only man who ever thought I was worth a damn, I’d told him once.

  Not the only one, he’d told me later. Tit for tat, we were even, except we weren’t.

  We would never be even. Not while I was still breathing. Only it wasn’t the kind of debt you could repay, or even anything that could be called a debt at all.

  I didn’t know what it was, except maybe love. Or something so huge it could swallow me, something that terrified me when I thought he might not want me anymore. Mischa thought I was worth plucking out of a snowdrift and training, but he left me behind. I wasn’t worth enough for him to stay. And that little voice inside my head, buried under a hunter’s iron.

  You’re not worth anything. You’re ugly. Too ugly for anyone to love. Even my mother, the bitch, had said so.

  And, I mean, come on. Just look at the man. Even gaunt and grieving, he was Native American calendar beefcake, broad-shouldered and dark-eyed.

  Who wouldn’t want him? Who wouldn’t feel their breath catch every time he looked their way?

  The third file fell open under my numb fingers. I blinked back hot water and what felt like rocks in my eyes. The little tingle of intuition ran up my arms and exploded under my breastbone. A puzzle piece fell into place with a click so loud I was surprised it didn’t knock over a few books.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  There, clipped to the inside of a folder probably older than I was, a singed, faded black-and-white photo glared at me. Saul approached, but I kept staring.

  The jaw was the same. So was the blond hair, the sculpted lips, and the straight thick eyebrows. And the glint of gold around the teeth. And the bad skin, but underneath that…

  All this time I’d thought she was just an ugly woman. Funny how beauty mutates according to expectation.

  My Were bent down, and his warmth touched my back. “Huh.” The faint ghost of zombie clinging to us both faded under the good smell of him, male and fur. “Is it Zamba’s brother?”

  “I think it’s Zamba.” I moved my hand so he could see what Sloane had written on the mat, the fountain pen marks digging hurriedly into the yellowing fibers.

  Arthur Gregory, missing, presumed dead. I flipped the file closed. “Jesus.”

  “Huh. She didn’t smell male.”

  “It can’t just be a coincidence.” I handed him the file and leaned forward, jammed the others back in vaguely where they went. “Right under my goddamn nose all the goddamn time. I hate that.”

  It took under a minute to get the vault closed up. I tugged the carpet square back over the cover and smoothed it down, turned sharply to find Saul just standing there, a line between his dark eyebrows, staring at me.

  The urgency of a case heating up bit me sharply, right in the conscience. Goddammit, can’t this wait?

  But no, it couldn’t. I braced myself and met the problem head-on. “Don’t worry about me.” There it was again—that sharp tone, the grating whine underneath it. “I did this job before you came along, Saul. If you’re aching to get back to the Rez, you can go. I wouldn’t hold it against you. God knows nobody else has ever been able to fucking put up with me.”

  Jesus. I meant to say something gentler. Like I love you, don’t leave me. Or even just, I need you too much. I don’t care.

  I did, though. I cared that the dark circles under his eyes were getting bigger, that his ribs were standing out sharply, and that his shoulders were hunched. Those were only the first few things in the long list of things I cared about when it came to him. It all boiled down to him maybe not wanting to keep banging his head on the steel wall I couldn’t figure out how to drop. The place in me where I’d been broken and remade, beaten until I turned strong. I’d figured he knew the way through the wall without my having to tell him. It was there every time I woke up next to him and my heart hurt because he was next to me, warm and breathing.

  Because he knew me.

  “Do you want me to?” His mouth pulled down at the corners, bitterly. “What did I do?”

  Huh? I searched for a handle on my temper, didn’t find one. The rock in my throat turned into sharp ice edges. “You? You didn’t do anything, goddammit. If you’re trying to figure out how to gracefully get rid of me, Saul, don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

  I was lying. It wasn’t anywhere near okay. But I would say it was. For him.

  “Jill…” He made a helpless motion just as my pager buzzed again. “I’m sorry.”

  I had a sudden, violent urge to grab my pager, throw it across the room, and shoot the motherfucker for good measure. “Don’t be sorry. Look, I know something’s wrong. It’s been wrong since you came back. I’m sorry. I should have known it was too good to be true.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” There it was, a spark of anger. It was a relief—when he was angry, the twenty-pounds-underweight-and-unhappy-too wasn’t so visible.

  I grabbed the file. He didn’t resist. “You don’t have to make any excuses to me,” I informed him. “No promises, no deals, no bargains. You said that the very first night. If you can’t stand me anymore, it’s okay. I expected it. Just go ahead and go. Find a nice tabby and raise a litter or three. God knows you’re domestic enough.”

  “Are you insane?”

  Holy hell and hallelujah. He’d actually shouted at me. No more moping; he was now officially pissed off.

  I closed my eyes, the massive mental effort needed to think clearly dragging at every inch of my body. The shaking had me in its jaws and wouldn’t let go.

  Zamba, Arthur Gregory. Some kind of beef with the Cirque, and his brother? Who knows? He found a bargain somewhere—probably voodoo. And the Twins, they specialize in androgyny. It would make sense, it would make a whole lot of sense.

  He went to Lorelei, Lorelei brokered a deal. Now that the Cirque is back, Lorelei was a liability, and her death would serve as fuel, and payment for the loa too. As well as the deaths
of Zamba’s inner circle. The possessions could be aftershocks or for some other part of Zamba’s plan.

  And once the possessed had died inside their violated bodies, they were easy meat for reanimation, and payment for the loa. Zamba was mortgaging herself to the hilt for this, whatever it was. Revenge?

  Probably.

  There were things I had to do. I opened my eyes, found I was staring at the ceiling. The acoustic tiles all but vibrated until I realized my goddamn eyes had fucking flooded. I couldn’t blame it on the dust in the air. Everything shimmered as I blinked, trying to get them to reabsorb the water. “I’m not crazy. I’m just saying that if you can’t bring yourself to touch me anymore, something’s obviously very wrong. You’re torn up over your mother, I know. I understand. But don’t kill yourself staying with me because you think you have to. If you have to cut me loose and go back to the Rez, if this isn’t what you need or want, you’re free as a fucking bird. I can’t keep you, Saul. I won’t keep you.”

  My pager quit buzzing. I tipped my chin back down and got a good look at him.

  Saul stared at me as if I had indeed lost my mind. His mouth opened, then closed. I clutched the file to my chest like a schoolgirl with her books.

  “I’ve got to go,” I finally said. It sounded very small in the stillness. “I’ve got to figure the rest of this out. Any moment now it could blow sky-high.” Knowing pretty much who I was dealing with gave me more to work with. The other big question—why—could be attacked now, and wrestled to the ground. Not to mention pistol-whipped and shot, if the occasion called for it.

  I was so tired it didn’t even sound like a relief.

  “Jill—” Saul had finally found his voice.

  If he was going to tell me that he wanted to go back to the Rez, I was going to start screaming. I couldn’t afford to lose it now.

  People were counting on me. A whole city full of them. My people, in my city.

  “Save it.” The words were a harsh croak. “Do what you’re gonna do, Saul. If you’re going to leave me in the dust, make it quick and clean. If you ever loved me, do it that way. Don’t drag it out.”

  I stamped past him, every string in my body aching to stop and touch him, throw my arms around him, and maybe engage in some undignified begging. Screw the entire city, screw everything. I didn’t care as long as he stayed with me. As long as there was a chance.

  But. One teensy-tiny little but.

  I’m a hunter. It’s that simple.

  If Zamba-Arthur or whoever it was kept killing Cirque performers, things were going to get sticky. There’s very little a really motivated voodoo queen can’t do to you, and she’d already hit the hostage, too. Perry was there, but if she found some way past him—or if he decided it was too much trouble and some chaos served his ends—well, it would be party time for the entire Cirque and I’d have Perry and a renegade fucking voodoo queen to deal with.

  Big fun.

  It meant a lot of innocent people dead or maimed. It meant hellbreed thinking they could slip the leash and make trouble in my town. It meant years of steady work keeping things under control wasted.

  It meant more victims.

  And there was just no fucking way I was going to stand for that.

  No matter what I stood to lose.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  When the Badger gets her teeth in something, she doesn’t let go. “It was a job and a half to find out who holds title to that goddamn house.” Behind her, another phone rang, and I heard Sullivan’s big voice raised. He was probably cussing at his coffee. The way Homicide bitches about the coffee, you’d think someone would have brought in some decent beans by now.

  Other than that, it sounded like a cubicle farm on speed. Which is to say, a usual morning in Homicide.

  “Huh.” I closed my eyes. It was easier that way, with the outside world shut out. “In what way?”

  “I had to go rousting.” She sounded almost indignant. “It wasn’t in the usual databases. I had to go down to the tax assessor’s office, they sent me to some goddamn basement. Had to pull records from 1930, can you believe that? They haven’t got around to putting that slice of the city in the databases, he said. Weird, since every other district is.”

  Well, isn’t that interesting. “And the winner is?”

  “Someone named Ruth Gregory. Utilities, phone, garbage pickup, all under the same name—there were bills in the house. But here’s some other weirdness: Ruth Gregory doesn’t exist.”

  “If she gets bills, she must exist.”

  “That’s the thing. None of her information’s anywhere we can find it, no DOB, no nothing. But she got bills and paid them. Has a bank account, but if it wasn’t for paper statements we wouldn’t know, her bank doesn’t have her on electronic file. There’s not even a listing in the phone book. This woman just came out of nowhere, and she doesn’t show up in the databases.”

  That’s voodoo for you. The electronic stuff is easier for the loa to affect than paper. Dammit. Ruth Gregory. “What’s her middle initial?” It was a small question, but I needed something I could feel good about anticipating.

  “Ruth R. Gregory. Why?”

  Ruth R. Arthur. A little fuck-you from Mama Zamba. Just like a supervillain. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any hints of other houses?”

  “I ran a check. Guess how many Ruth Gregorys there are in the good old United States.”

  How the hell should I know? But it was just like her to run it into the ground. “Thousands?”

  “Less than four hundred. Four in our state. None with the middle initial R. And no hint of a separate identity, though it’s a good bet that if she had one we wouldn’t be able to find it electronically either. It could take us weeks of sifting paper—”

  We don’t have weeks. “That’s not necessary. If any scrap of another identity comes up from processing the house, let me know. Otherwise, just keep identifying those stiffs. Okay?”

  “All right.” She sounded almost disappointed. She would run Zamba into the ground over weeks if she had to. Months. Or years.

  “Good work.” And I meant it. “Did you get everything you needed out of the house?”

  “Boxes of paper. She was a real pack rat, our Miz Gregory. We left everything not needed for Forensics there and closed it up. Should we go back?”

  No way. “No. God, no.” I didn’t mean to sound horrified. “Stay away from there. Just keep processing that paper and buzz me if anything else tingles your weird-o-meter, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  “Any ID on the other bodies yet? Other than Trevor Watson?” At least, the zombies that weren’t Zamba’s followers?

  “Not yet. They’re pretty spludgy.”

  Well, that’s one word for it. “Okay. Thanks.” I dropped the phone in the cradle, considered screaming and shooting something.

  Prioritize, Jill. Get your head straight.

  It was a good plan. I just wasn’t sure I could do it.

  What next? Come on, what are you going to do next?

  There was only one thing to do. And it wasn’t going by the Cirque, thank God, or standing around yelling at Saul. I looked up, but the bookshop was deserted. Nothing but empty aisles faced with stuffed-full bookshelves, boxes on the floor, the antique cash register sitting stolidly, gathering dust. “Saul?” The word quivered. Was he gone?

  Oh, fuck. I stood there with my hand on the phone, my hip against Hutch’s desk, and my heart twisting itself like a contortionist inside my chest. “Saul?”

  I checked the kitchen and the EMPLOYEES ONLY room. I even checked the goddamn bathroom.

  He was gone. I hadn’t even heard him leave.

  God. I swallowed something hot and nasty, paced through the entire shop one more time. Blinked several times. My cheeks were wet.

  This is one less thing for you to worry about. Get back up on the horse, Jill. Do your job.

  It was time for me to visit Melendez.

  Chapter Twenty-two

&n
bsp; If Zamba was the reigning voodoo queen, Melendez was the court jester. Don’t get me wrong—anyone who bargains with an inhuman intelligence is suspect, and just because I hadn’t heard of Melendez doing anything even faintly homicidal or icky didn’t mean he didn’t dabble.

  But it didn’t mean the little butterball was harmless, either. Any more than the mark on my wrist meant I was a Trader.

  Only I was, if you thought about it a certain way. And while Melendez didn’t go in for the theatrical horror and power games Zamba did, he also didn’t go out of his way to make things easier on people. Live and let die, that was probably the closest thing to a motto he would ever have.

  Saul had left me the car. Awful nice of him. I told the sharp spearing ache in my heart to go away and made time through midmorning traffic, brakes squealing and tires chirping. The shadows leapt and cavorted in my peripheral vision until I began ignoring them, even the colorless crystal eyes and the glass-twinkle teeth. I caught the flow of traffic like a pinball down a greased slide, all the way across town to the northern fringe of the Riverhurst section.

  A nice address, all things considered, clinging to rich respectability like cactus clings to any breath of moisture. The houses are old, full of creaks, fake adobes and some improbable Cape Cods. They had bigger yards than anything other than the rest of Riverhurst, and most of them were drenched green. I even saw some sprinklers running, spouting rainbows under the heaving, cringe-inducing glare of dusty sunlight.

  Melendez didn’t hold his gatherings in his home. He owned a storefront on the edge of the barrio, with a trim white sign out front announcing the Holy Church of St. Barbara, nonprofit and legitimate under a 501(c)(3). His own private little joke, I guess. Seven nights a week you can find drumming, dancing, and weird shit happening on the little strip of concrete that had pretensions of being Pararrayos Avenue.