The Circus Infinitus Stories Volume 1

by Ethan Somerville

  “I’m so glad you both could come at such notice,” declared the small woman, folding her plump little hands in front her. Rings gleamed on her fat fingers. Her voice may have been high and somewhat squeaky, but it commanded great authority. She was, after all, Queen Victoria. “I’ll get straight to the point. I have been receiving increasingly disturbing reports about the Circus Infinitus. The time has come to find out what is really taking place behind its curtains.”

  “Everyone I have sent to talk to the Ringmaster has returned with glowing reports which I know to be false,” declared the IntelliGent in his soft, slightly prissy voice.

  “You know?” retorted the Monocle.

  “I have my sources, you have yours,” snapped the Gent.

  “Gentlemen, if I may have your complete attention?” The Queen’s voice cut through their argument like a knife. The men remembered their manners and apologised. “We know we cannot talk to the Ringmaster. He is a master hypnotist. And no-one can even get near that vile necromancer of his. Which means one of you two must find someone else to talk to, someone you can catch away from the Circus.” She clapped her hands. “Time is of the essence, Gentlemen. The longer that Circus stays here, the more people are corrupted by its influence. These days I hear talk of nothing else, and after two weeks the lines for shows are getting longer, not shorter.” She pushed herself to her feet. “It must be shut down at all costs!”

  After the Monocle and the IntelliGent had been escorted from the palace grounds, and were standing outside its gates, the Gent rounded on the Monocle. “Just what is your problem with me, sir?”

  “You are a godless heathen who cares not one whit where he acquires his knowledge.”

  The Gent smiled thinly. “Apart from that?”

  Fotherington glared at him. “That’s it!” He turned to stalk back to his carriage, but the Gent caught his arm.

  “She said we must work together. If you let your prejudices blind you, the Circus will move before we have a chance to claim its prizes.”

  Sir Hubert stared. “I know nothing about any prizes. The place is evil and must be stopped.”

  The IntelliGent stepped up to him and looked him directly in the eye. “You can’t fool me, Monocle. You know very well what treasures lie inside. Among them a certain four hundred year old grimoire and a medieval jester’s artefacts – articles I believe your holy superiors have been hunting for centuries.”

  Fotherington didn’t want to give anything away, but the IntelliGent seemed able to read him like a book. “And I suppose your motives are more noble?”

  The Gent snorted. “Of course not. I admit I also want what’s inside. But I’m sure we can come to some sort of an arrangement. After all, I only want to borrow the book. You can have it when I’m done, to hide away in your holy safes for the rest of time if you like.”

  “And the jester’s items?”

  “Trinkets. They only work for a particular bloodline anyway. I have no use for them.”

  Fotherington sighed. “Very well. How would you like to proceed then?”

  “Meet me back at my club this afternoon, and we’ll discuss it in more detail over a nice pot of tea.”

  They were wrong. Quite a few Circus folk actually left the grounds. But only one Pumpkinhead Jack dared follow. And he was seven and a half feet tall and weighed several hundred pounds! Pumpkinhead didn’t dare creep within a hundred yards of the Ringmaster, or the lady with seven faces, or that nasty tiger mistress. Compared to them, the strong man was relatively harmless. Jack made sure no one could see him as he slipped out of the shadows and crept after the enormous figure shrouded in his huge, patched coat.

  X the strongman was far too heavy to hide in a hackney or cling to the back of a hansom cab. He had to walk to his destination, which sometimes took him several hours. But he didn’t care. He didn’t need much sleep and could afford to roam all night if he had to. His destination was the Limehouse district, with its narrow, smoky alleys filled with Chinese shops and laundries. Disreputable characters watched his progress but none dared confront such an enormous fellow. Even those who hadn’t seen him pick up an elephant or wrestle a polar bear knew not to tangle with him. He was huge. He filled most of the seedy side-streets he entered, and there were some alleys he couldn’t even pass through. People leapt out of his way, shifting stalls and carts before he could knock them over or stomp them flat beneath his huge bare feet. Children gaped at him in amazement.

  The fact that everyone else’s attention was on X made Pumpkinhead’s job so much easier. He hardly even needed to hide in shadows or creep quietly. He simply drifted in the strongman’s wake like a fish. Had anyone actually spotted him, they would have seen an unassuming little man with a pumpkin shaped head, wearing a dirty brown monk’s habit. Had they looked more closely, they would have seen the little smirk on his face and the otherworldly glint in his eyes.

  X worked his way ever deeper into the Limehouse’s dirty alleys until he found the place he wanted – a low doorway recessed deep into an ancient building constructed just after the Great Fire. He paused in front and knocked. The door opened a crack and a pointy face peeped out, barking something in Chinese. Then Chu Mei Wang recognised the gigantic apparition outside and backed up to allow him in. X had to duck and turn sideways to enter. Pumpkinhead slid in behind him, unnoticed, and the door slammed shut.

  X stood, bent over, filling a narrow hallway. The air was thick with sweet-smelling smoke. Chu Mei Wang turned and scurried up the passage, beckoning X to one of many curtained doorways leading off it. “We have managed to get special big room for you, sir!” he purred. “Bed won’t collapse this time. All ready for you. You pay now?” He stretched out a bony claw.

  X reached into his coat and pulled out a bag of coins, plopping it into the little man’s hand.

  “Thank you, thank you.” The bag disappeared, and the little man lifted the heavy velvet curtain so X could duck into the room. Everything had been set up for X now, since this was his fourth visit since the Circus’s arrival. There was an extra-wide bed to recline on, a huge block of resin powdered and prepared in a bowl, and a hookah filled and ready beside it. X gave a huge smile. “All to your satisfaction?” Chu Mei Wang gushed.

  X nodded vigorously.

  Chu Mei Wang backed out with a bow and the curtain fell. He brushed right past Pumpkinhead Jack without seeing him and disappeared around a corner. Pumpkinhead knew X wouldn’t be moving for a while so he crept out of the building and found a dark doorway to lurk in. He sent a telepathic message to Jersey Devil, summoning him from what whatever den of iniquity he was currently frequenting. While he waited for Jersey, he sent the same message to the Underfiend, telling him what he had discovered.

  “Excellent work,” responded the Underfiend. “I will inform the IntelliGent.”

  Jersey Devil showed up a full five minutes later, moving so quickly he seemed to appear from nowhere.

  “What took you?” Pumpkin demanded. “Did I get you out of a pub or brothel?”

  Jersey was a skinny, lanky fellow with a long pointy nose and spiky brown hair that refused to stay flat no matter what he did. “Neither, I was asleep! Humans do that at night, you know. So where’s the strongman?”

  Pumpkinhead Jack chuckled. “In the opium den. Seems that zombie behemoth has a little habit he likes to indulge.”

  Inside the den X shrugged off his enormous coat, fashioned from several blankets that had been roughly stitched together. Beneath he wore nothing but his chains criss-crossed over his body and his threadbare pants. He sat down on the reinforced bunk and it creaked ominously but held – unlike the last one. Then he took a long puff on the hookah and gave another smile. He was a simple man, with few pleasures. Showing off on stage was one – this was another. Then he felt a kicking in his guts and began pulling the heavy chains from his enormous middle, dropping them to the floor with a clatter. Almost immediately a seam split his belly from chest to navel. He flopped back bed as the flesh peeled b
ack, pushed from the inside by four tiny pairs of hands.

  “Sorry X, but we couldn’t wait any longer!” squeaked Freako the Clown as he jumped out of X’s belly. “That was some good stuff!” He scrambled across to the hookah and drew on it so hard smoke came out of his ears.

  “My turn, my turn!” cried Warpo the Clown, leaping out after Freako and falling flat on his face on the floor. “Ouch!”

  Kinko the Clown then scrambled out, landing on Warpo and reaching the hookah next. He grabbed it off Freako and took a long, refreshing drag. “Ahhh! Much better!”

  Shirley was the last to emerge from X’s belly. She picked up Warpo and plonked him back on his feet. Then she grabbed the Hookah from Kinko with a cheeky grin.

  The four clowns were completely naked, but they had ensured that X had brought their clothes, concealed in a pouch inside his enormous coat. After the clowns had each had a turn on the Hookah, they dressed and settled down for a night of frivolity. They had also gotten X to pack gin and a deck of cards.

  Without the clowns inside him giving him support, X could no longer move. But that didn’t worry him - he had had his fill of opium. He fell asleep on the huge bed while his little symbionts played on the floor beside him, They smoked, drank, played cards, and when that no longer amused, Warpo, Freako and Kinko took turns making love to Shirley, who was only too eager to accommodate them. Their high-pitched shrieks of delight concerned Chu Mei Wang, who hovered outside the dusty curtain for several minutes, but was loath to look inside because he knew how much his clients valued their privacy. He really didn’t want that gigantic black monster punching his face in for intruding.

  But Chu would have given his front eye-teeth to know what was really going on in there. Every time that enormous freak had visited, he had come alone, yet numerous voices had sounded from behind the curtain. Chu had counted at least four. The Strongman must bring people with him, he decided. It’s the only explanation.

  X emerged about six hours later, yawning and rubbing his eyes. The clowns were back inside now, settling down in a stupor. Their mental states affected his own, and he hoped they would stay awake until he got back to the Circus. Without their minds constantly nudging his own, he quickly became lost and confused, unable to find his way back. But they had had a particularly good time tonight, and they were all asleep even before he reached the den’s front door. He barely heard Chu call a cheery farewell as he stumbled out into the night, too concerned about trying to remember the way. He didn’t fancy stumbling around the streets for half a day, waiting for the clowns to wake up.

  But X has scarcely gotten ten yards from the opium den when several dark figures leapt out of the shadows all around him. Big men, almost as tall as he, jumped on him and tried to wrestle him to the ground. A robed, hooded figure rose up in front of him and punched him in the face, so hard he saw stars. X might have had the intelligence of a not-too-bright child, but he knew such a blow would have knocked a normal human’s head off. What was this creature? He could only see a pair of bright, inhuman eyes and a mouthful of fangs gleaming in the distant gaslight.

  X struggled furiously, trusting his enormous strength to save him. But he had never fought so many huge, gnarly men, nor was he normally so befuddled. And the clowns remained unconscious in his belly, like a lead weight. His attackers managed to wrap thick chains around him, pulling them cruelly tight and dragging him to the ground. Then the shadowy, robed creature cracked him across the back of the head with an iron bar, and X slid backwards into a semi-conscious stupor.

  It took five of the Monocle’s beefy lads to shift him. “Couldn’t they have picked a slightly smaller fella?” gasped one of the men. “He weighs a bleedin’ ton!”

  The Underfiend glared at him. “Keep your voice down, Andrews, or I’ll rip out your tongue. Now move him and be quick about it! It’s almost dawn!” To his human companions, he looked just like one of them – a very tall, well-built man with a bull neck, dressed in a long dark robe with a deep hood. Only X had glimpsed his true form. But X wasn’t technically human anymore.

  Still grumbling, the big men shifted X’s enormous body out of the alley and down the street, trying to make it look like they were helping a drunk friend rather than an unconscious victim. The Underfiend had a good story – and a bag of shillings – for the police, but after all the trouble with the Ripper lately, London’s Bobbies were on their toes. A suspicious group like this would arouse instant action.

  Luckily they didn’t have to go far. Because X was too heavy for a carriage, the IntelliGent had organized an empty warehouse for the interrogation, around the corner at the end of a filthy street. He waited there now with the impatient Monocle. When the motley group finally hauled their prisoner in, they both voiced their disapproval.

  “Took you long enough!”

  “The sun is practically up!”

  “He didn’t come out till five minutes ago!” protested the Underfiend. “He was in there all night!”

  The Gent had far more patience than the Monocle, and accepted the Fiend’s story. “Very well, get him stripped, trussed up and we’ll begin.” He gestured towards the middle of the room, where a heavy duty butcher’s hook had been suspended from the ceiling. It took the combined strength of the Underfiend and the Monocle’s hefty lads to haul X’s naked dead weight up and hang him from the hook. Then they all had to pull on the chain to lift him high enough so his head no longer touched the ground. The chains were wrapped so thickly around his middle that he resembled a large metal cocoon.

  The Monocle watched with disdain, annoyed that he had to deal with people like the IntelliGent and his weird minions. He was sure there was something unholy about the big man he had recruited. And he had just spotted two other shadowy figures out of the corner of his eye; a hideous fellow with a pumpkin-shaped head, and a skinny, birdlike chap with crazy hair and a beaky nose. They possessed the same disturbing aura as the big robed individual, but whenever he tried to determine their true natures, he encountered resistance, seeing only a hazy grey mist. Some other power shielded them from his gaze.

  “They’re with me,” the Gent declared before Fotherington could voice his disapproval. “They’re here to help extract information.”

  The Underfiend grunted in agreement.

  The Monocle wanted to leave this distasteful business to the thugs, but knew he would probably miss vital information in the process. There was no way the IntelliGent would tell him everything. So he swallowed his bile. “Very well – we might as well get this over and done with.” He motioned for his burly eunuchs to back up so the IntelliGent and his three lackeys could start.

  The Underfiend began by dousing X with a bucket of water to wake him. The big man coughed and spluttered, jerking in his chains. When he realized where he was, he roared in disapproval. While the Gent watched impassively, the Underfiend, Pumpkin and Jersey waded in with bats and pipes, beating X on various exposed parts of his body. He howled in confusion and rage, but not once did he make a coherent sound.

  “Crude,” muttered the Monocle.

  “They’re just softening him up,” the IntelliGent declared. Motioning the trio back he stepped up to X and fired questions at him.

  X just stared at him, his eyes brimming with fury.

  “Open his mouth,’ the Gent ordered.

  The Underfiend forced his jaw apart.

  “Damn,” cursed the IntelliGent. The Monocle hissed at his blasphemy. “He’s a mute,” the Gent continued as though Sir Hubert hadn’t spoken. “We won’t get anything out of him like this.” He turned on the Monocle. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you and your gentlemen to leave.”

  The Monocle folded his arms. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “I have another way of gleaning information from him, but it’s not for your eyes. If you want anything from this freak, leave now.” His normally soft, prissy tone had become razor sharp, not inviting negotiation.

  The Monocle glared at him, but then turned on hi
s heel and stalked out, beckoning his eunuchs to follow. “Make sure he doesn’t sneak a peek,” the Gent commanded Pumpkinhead. Jack gave a wicked grin and scuttled off, immediately vanishing into the gloom. The Gent turned back to X, who was still writhing and grunting incoherently, trying to free himself. The hook’s chain was looped around an oaken support beam a foot wide, but the Gent still wondered if it would hold.

  The IntelliGent unwrapped the turban from around his head. Beneath his skull was oversized and transparent, made from what appeared to be glass. His enormous brain was visible beneath, pulsing wetly. The Gent undid two brass clips on either side of the glass brain-case and opened his skull to the air. X gaped in horror, his eyes wide. Tentacles emerged from the brain and slid into X’s ears, mouth and nostrils. The big man spluttered and struggled, but the pseudopods were relentless. They sought out X’s brain and examined it.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing to examine. The Gent’s powers relied on intelligence. And X had very little. The IntelliGent found only hazy images of the Circus and sensations, nothing he could use. He cursed and withdrew his probes. When he called the Monocle back in, his head was once more securely wrapped in its turban.

  “Unfortunately, my particular method failed too,” he snapped. “The man is an imbecile. It is a wonder he managed to get here by himself.”

  The Monocle stared at X, deep in thought. Then he snapped his long, bony fingers. “I know a priest who can communicate with morons such as these through prayer, but it may take some hours to bring him here.”

  “If you tell me where he is, I’ll have Jersey fetch him. He is quite fast,” the IntelliGent declared.

  “He won’t deal with your disgusting imps!” Sir Hubert snarled. “I will send for him. You can wait here and guard the prisoner with my men.” He gestured to three of his eunuchs, and they nodded in acknowledgement. Then he stalked out.

  The Gent never waited. He set the Underfiend, Jersey Devil and Pumpkinhead Jack to watching X – and the Monocle’s eunuchs, in case they tried something funny. Then he set off for a nearby club he owned.