I stepped out into the curtain of golden light. The cold around me cracked reluctantly, threads of heat touching my leather-clad shoulders. The cup rattled a few times and was still, a weight in my largest pocket.
Calliope music surged and drifted. The shadows were alive, lean dogshapes twisting and leaping through them. The sun was higher, working through the shell of ice over me. It was going to be another scorcher of a day, and I wasn’t going to get any more rest.
Come on, Jill. You can rest later. Right now, you’ve got to break few traffic laws.
I lengthened my stride. Dust lifted on the morning breeze, and I caught a breath of cotton candy and sickness. The Cirque shimmered, even more frayed and tawdry in daylight, thick electrical cables strung between the tents. The avenues and alleys were deserted, but I could feel eyes on me.
I tried not to feel like I was retreating, and had to remind myself to keep my chin up as I headed for the entrance.
Galina met me at the door, in jeans and a gray T-shirt. “Jill, thank God. I remembered. I can’t understand why I forgot—”
“Voodoo,” I said shortly. Memory is as easy as electronics to subvert. It’s honest paper they have trouble with sometimes. “Where’s Gilberto?”
“Upstairs sleeping. I gave him a tranquilizer and set a healing on that arm of his. He seems okay enough.” Her eyes were dark and troubled, and her marcel waves were slightly disarranged, pulled back under another red kerchief. “I was in the kitchen stirring up a batch of bone-ease and all of a sudden it hit me, like I’d known it all along. Listen—”
So Zamba’s slipping and her loa are no longer paying attention to certain things. Or it doesn’t matter now that she’s close to getting what she wants. I made a restless movement. I was two steps ahead but I might not stay that way for long. “I need ammo, I need a place to work, and I need your help.”
“Jill, listen. I think Mama Zamba is—”
“Is Arthur Gregory. He made a deal with the Twins, got a sex change or just dressed like a girl to throw everyone off the scent, and part of the deal was clouding his origins so nobody would guess or find him. It didn’t work completely on you because you’re a Sanctuary, and it didn’t work on Sloane’s files because of the defenses on Hutch’s store and the standard defenses on every piece of hunter paper. I just spanked Zamba a good one this morning, and I’m working on no time and even less sleep. Can you get me some ammo and talk while I’m reloading? I’ll need some other things, too.”
The shop resounded around her, clear air thrumming like a bell for a moment, and I swayed on my feet. I could still smell cotton candy, and the reek of a hellbreed body boiling as it ate through cloth and false hair alike.
Galina folded her arms and examined me from top to toe. “Heavens. Where’s Saul? You look terrible.”
“Thanks. I think Saul left me.” Said that way, it only managed to hurt like hell instead of cripple me.
“Left you?” A vertical crease showed up between her pretty eyebrows. “But—”
“Galina.” I closed the door, the bell jangling discordantly. My arms ached, a low deep fierce pain. I’d probably pulled something trying to keep the cup still, and sorcery tells on the physical body even when you have the power to burn. Come to think of it, my ass hurt too. I would probably be bruised by midnight. “My love life can wait. If Zamba kills who she’s aiming for, there’s going to be heavy-duty problems and I’m too tired to deal with them. I’ve got a plan but I need your help. You can talk and help me at the same time.”
“What do you need?” She was suddenly all practical attention, turning on her bare heel and setting off across the store toward the back counter.
“Rum. Hand mirrors. Florida water. Cigars. A little bit of luck, and everything you now remember about Samuel and Arthur Gregory.” I took a step after her, and paused. “And… you wouldn’t happen to have any live chickens around, would you?”
“I don’t deal in livestock; I send people to Zamba for that. Or used to, anyway.”
Damn. But all of a sudden, a bright idea popped into my head. “Never mind, I can get ’em somewhere else. I’m going to need to use your phone, too. Oh, and cornmeal.” I paused. “And I think I might need some heavy-duty firepower.”
She didn’t even blink. “Like?”
“Grenades. If this all goes south I’m going to need to kill a lot of ’breed really quickly.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
The sun was still a decent distance above the horizon when I goosed my Pontiac through the rows of parked cars under hoods and blankets of sparkling dust, bumped over a temporary speed bump, and got right up near the front gate. The same female Trader working the admissions booth didn’t even glance up. There wasn’t a single, shuffling soul in sight in the wide dusty strip in front of the booth, and a pall of white biscuit-flour dust hung over everything.
The heat was like oil, and I was glad. I’d washed my face at Galina’s, but I was still grimed with dust as soon as I stepped out into the haze. The Trader in the booth stared as I opened the trunk and shrugged into the first bandolier. On went the belt, heavy with more ammo, and the second bandolier. The weight at shoulders and hips was enough to drive home just how fucking tired I was, and my eyes burned. I blinked away fine grit and picked up the black canvas bag, settled the strap diagonally across my body.
Jesus. I’m loaded up like a burro. I also got the flattish cage out of the backseat, thanking God I’d gotten a sedan and not the two-door coupe. If someone wanted to firebomb this car they had their work cut out for them, GM hadn’t believed in fucking around with fiberglass in the ’60s and this was one of the heaviest, widest mothers they ever built. Plus, the price had been right—it was a heap when I picked it up, but a month or two of heavy work and it was a solid, if not cherry, piece of American metal.
The chickens were okay, three balls of white feathers in a wire cage. Piper hadn’t even asked me why I wanted them. “They’re pecking and clucking, and I can’t get rid of them until Monday,” was what she said out loud. Goddammit, take these fucking things away, was the unspoken message.
And then she’d looked at me when I appeared in the door of her office, and said, “Jesus, Jill. You look awful.”
It’s about to get worse, I thought, and slammed the door. Stuffed my keys in their safe pocket, blew a kiss to my baby, and turned on one slick steelshod heel, stamped for the entrance.
“You can’t leave that there!” the Trader called, her fingernails digging into the pasteboard counter. “Hey!”
My left hand had the cage, and my right actually cramped when I snatched it back from a gun butt. Don’t waste ammo on this bitch, the cold clear voice of rationality said. You’re going to need it later.
I didn’t realize I was staring as her until she blundered backward, the spangles on her shirt sending up hard clear darts of light as she spilled right through the back of the little hutch where she crouched, deciding who could go in and get trapped by the Cirque. Must’ve been a helluva cushy job.
But not right now.
She vanished, and sunlight bounced through the empty booth. A flutter of small paper tickets puffed into the air, settled. I uncramped my fingers, shook them out, and took a deep breath.
Cool and calm, Jillybean. That’s the way to do this.
I waited until I felt the little click inside my head, the one that meant I was rising away, disconnected, into the clear cold place where I could do what I had to without counting the cost. The space where murder was just semantics and the only thing that mattered was the task at hand. Anything else—pity, mercy, compassion—just fucked it up, just tangled the clarity of justice and made everything difficult.
It was a good thing Saul wasn’t here. I couldn’t do this with him around. Not with his quiet dark eyes watching me. And that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? It wasn’t him.
It was me.
But right now I hopped the stile, weighted down and maneuvering the wire cages with one hand. The
ram’s heads sparked, gathering the late hot sunlight and throwing it back viciously. I could swear I saw one of the blind snouts move, and the stile clicked once as I landed, a dry ominous sound.
Thou who, I thought. Thou who has given me to fight evil, protect me, keep me from harm.
Usually the Hunter’s Prayer calms me. This time, it was no anodyne. It was a complement to the unsteady ball of rage under my ribs. Because I want to be the one dishing out the harm tonight. Some divine help wouldn’t hurt, if this plan’s going to pull itself off.
It was warm and still inside the Cirque. Balmy, even. The whole place was deserted. Maybe the girl in the booth had been an early-warning system, or maybe she didn’t get the memo that everyone was supposed to be gone. Nothing moved except unsecured tent flaps, and the calliope was muted and limping along through a rendition of the “Cuckoo Waltz,” wheezing and popping, straining like a locomotive going uphill.
Dusk was beginning to gather. The shadows had lengthened. I’ve seen a lot, and believe me when I say there is nothing creepier than a carnival at dusk. The midway games were all lit up, but nobody was in the booths. The dust tamped itself down where people’s feet had shuffled. The ghost of cotton candy turned cloying and rotten, haunted the heavy stillness. The breeze mouthed the fringe over the goldfish bowl, whistled through the pegs of the Wheel of Fortune, made the Ring the Bell, Strongman!’s bell make a low hollow sound. I caught a glimpse of a carousel down one long avenue of tents, the horses rising and falling with a clatter. The mirrors ran with soft dead light even through the red glow of approaching sunset, and where the horses shifted into shadow a ripple ran as if their muscles moved. Carved manes tossed, and some of them trickled greasy, black-looking blood from sharptooth mouths.
A mouthful of fried-food scent, old grease gone rancid and clotted, brushed by, and the chickens made soft broody sounds. A single white feather drifted down from the cage. THROW A RING, a hand-lettered sign barked at me, the white-painted words surrounded by leering faces, WIN A PRIZE. The rings chattered softly against the angled spikes, and I could almost see the pegs used to make the spikes impossible to hit.
I penetrated the tangled maze, heading for the bigtop’s bulk. Its pennants flapped as the wind came up the river on its evening exhale, and I heard a distant mutter of thunder behind the calliope’s mournful wrangling. The flat mineral tang of the water swept the fried food, animals, and spoiled candy away from me for a moment, and I was suddenly possessed of the intense urge to set the cages down, shuck all my weaponry, go back to the car, and drive. Somewhere, anywhere. Away from here and the job that had to be done. Away from the job that would kill me one of these days.
The carnival-breath closed around me again, walling away the clean scent of the river. All of a sudden I smelled popcorn and white vinegar, corn dogs and healthy human sweat. The calliope lunged forward into “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and I remembered one of the few good times in my childhood, when my mother was between boyfriends. She had taken me to a Santa Luz Wheelwrights game, and we’d eaten hot dogs and cheered until we were hoarse.
Two weeks after that her new guy put her in the hospital and beat me to a pulp too. I was six.
Memory exploded, calliope music wrapping around me and tapping the inside of my skull, and I had another, deeper urge. To throw down the cage and the weapons, to retrace my steps and find that carousel, and to pick a horse. Any horse, it wouldn’t matter. Though I would like one with tawny sides and dark eyes, and I was sure there would be one there waiting just for me. I could climb up on its back and ride, and one by one every memory I didn’t want to keep would fall away like autumn leaves.
And if the horse shuddered and lurched then, if it grew fangs and the other horses clustered around with hellfire in their eyes and their teeth dripping, I would not care. I would willingly lie down, and it wouldn’t be rough wooden planks that I felt. It would be the killing cold of a snowbank, and I would be back in the snow before Mikhail pulled me out.
Not tonight, little one, he’d said. But even then I’d known it was only a matter of time.
I shivered. The chickens made more soft noises. The tremor passed through me, and the calliope missed a single note.
If I went and got on that carousel, though, I would forget Saul. I would forget the low inquiring purr he used when he was sleepy and I moved against him in the warm nest of our bed. I would forget the way his hair curled, and the depth of his dark eyes. I would forget his hands warm on me, and the soothing when I sobbed and he would hold me, murmuring into my hair.
Even our volcanic fights, when we screamed at each other and the ghosts of my past would rise behind each edged word. Or the silence in Hutch’s bookshop when I realized he was gone, most probably for good, because I didn’t deserve him.
Remembering him would be a double-edged pleasure. But it was one I would hold to me in the dead watches of the night, when I was patrolling and my city was a collection of black and gray. Filth in its corners and the cries of innocents falling on deaf ears.
If I dropped what I was holding and went to the carousel, who would even try to fight for them? And who would remember Saul the way I did?
Trembling had me in its grip like a dog shaking a favorite chew toy. Sweat slicked my skin, ran down the channel of my spine. The chickens were squawking more loudly now, because their cage was jerking back and forth. I came back to myself with a rush, and found the shadows had lengthened. One lay over my boot-toes, and I looked up, confused.
The sun was sinking. How long had I been standing here?
Silver chimed as I shook my head, the charms clattering against each other. My apprentice-ring popped a spark, and the chickens took exception to that. I let out a harsh breath, my pulse hammering like I’d just run a hard mile. Feathers drifted to the ground, and I noticed the dust had swirled around me, streaks against my leather pants up to my thighs.
As if something had been rubbing against my legs.
The calliope surged again, but I couldn’t identify the tune and it didn’t pluck at me. It sounded dissatisfied. I took an experimental step forward, and the chickens calmed down. More thunder sounded, closer now. I checked the deepening bruise of the sky, found no clouds.
I understood more about the Cirque now. Much, much more than I ever wanted to.
My legs stopped trembling after another couple of steps. I swallowed a horrible bitter taste and almost choked on the regret and unsteady anger.
The bigtop wasn’t far. I somehow made my weary legs go faster, and I walked toward it with my head held high.
Chapter Twenty-eight
There was no guard at the door—just a red velvet rope I felt okay stepping over, since its arc almost dragged the strip of faded Astroturf leading into the maw. The plague-carrier’s straight wooden chair was set to one side, flies buzzing around its encrusted surface. My coat whispered, and thunder growled again in the distance.
First impression: soaring space. The place was huge. At the far end was a collection of gleams and puffs of green vapor, and the back of my neck chilled when I realized it was the calliope, two stories high and belching lime-green steam. It wasn’t any louder, certainly not loud enough to be heard all through the Cirque.
Next impression: empty seats, their wooden surfaces polished by God knew how many rear ends and backs, their arms carved. Some had straps lying open, others hungry metal hoops that clicked open and shut in time with the music, right where they could close over wrists and ankles. Some of the seats flipped up and down in tentative jerks.
Three knee-high wooden rings held vast circles of stained sawdust. The two smaller, flanking circles held all sorts of weird metal cages and implements, some crusted with nameless fluids, others gleaming dully. The light came from nowhere, and rippled on the underside of the canvas like reflections from a pond’s unquiet, scum-laced surface.
The biggest, central ring was mostly bare. Dark spatters and drips spoke in their own tongueless language—that’s high-impac
t splatter, and right there is arterial spray, and that’s where someone was bludgeoned. I forced myself to look away.
Set in the exact middle of the middle ring was a plain metal bedstead with a thin dun mattress that looked older than I felt. The hostage lay, curled into a fetal position, his narrow shadowed back to me. He was still wearing the same ratty boxers, and the collar glinted under his lank hair.
I stepped over the border of the ring, candystriped plywood faded and chipped this close up. As soon as I did, light glared, and I almost threw myself into a fighting crouch before I realized it was a spot from high up, and it highlighted the Ringmaster, standing at the other end of the circle. His face was a cadaver’s leer, and he capered a little like a tired old horse, his red velvet coat glaring and the top hat sending back jets of dispirited aqueous light. His cane whirled once like a propeller, the green crystal globe humming as it clove thick air.
He danced again, his jodhpurs flapping and the boots landing hard on springy sawdust. Then he halted, jabbed the cane at me, and hissed.
I set the chickens down. They had gone deathly quiet, and the cage shook slightly. I didn’t blame them a bit. The shadows in here leapt and swirled, but I didn’t see any colorless crystal eyes or lean leaping forms. Even my blue eye was having trouble with the shifting shadows, the ether thick as pea soup.
But just because I didn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there. And Perry had to be around here somewhere too.
The calliope quieted slightly, faint cheery music with an undertone of ripping flesh and splintered bone. I did my best to tune it out.
“Come on in and step right up, ladies and gentlemen! See the hunter come into the ring! Yessir it’s a sight for the ages, and tonight’s show will be the one to end all shows! Hurry, hurry, find your seats—”
“Shut up.” My yell sliced right through his, and the scar woke to painful, agonized life, sending a hot bolt up my right arm. “And get out of the fucking ring.”
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