The Carnival of Curiosities (Matt Drake Book 27)

by David Leadbeater

  “Yeah,” Drake acknowledged. “It really is pissing it down out there.”

  A swell of fighters made the tent walls billow inward. Guy ropes and metal supports snapped, causing the front wall to sag and the apex high above to lean precariously. Drake backpedaled toward the burlesque dancers and their aides.

  “You have to get out of here. Run!”

  More supports snapped with sharp reports like gunshots. The walls started to collapse. Drake saw men panicking, firing their guns and throwing knives. Without looking back, he raced across to the dancers and started dragging them to their feet.

  “This way.”

  Some of the women, young and scared, shied away. Desperately, he turned to the couple that ran the show.

  “Virgil and Nicoleta, right? Cam sent us. You remember Cam?”

  The man, Virgil, nodded. “A good boy.”

  “He came back to save you. His family. His Roma family. He risked everything, so come with me now.”

  They rose, stepping closer to him. The dancers followed. Dahl skidded to a halt at his side. “Did you notice that?” the Swede said. “Soon as I got here the strippers stood up.”

  “Not strippers,” Virgil said. “They are artists, portraying a dramatic work through dance. There is no smut here.”

  Drake patted Dahl’s arm. “You hear that, mate? You’re the only one here with filth on your mind.”

  They led the Roma toward the back of the tent. More men piled through the front, grappling. The walls buckled, the apex collapsing, flapping canvas walls falling down on top of everyone. Mai whipped out a knife and cut a hole in the back before the material reached them, ushering out the dancers.

  Back out into the rain.

  Drake spun, boots squelching. Two more tents stood to his left, both with their side walls collapsing. The knife thrower and fire eater were stumbling out of one, followed by other carnival folk, beset by Hagi’s men. The knife thrower flicked his last blade and then fell before a double assault.

  “Stay here,” Drake yelled at the dancers before turning to Dahl and the others. “We have to help them.”

  As one, the team dashed off to protect the Roma. Drake kicked a fighter in the stomach and another in the knee, breaking it. Dahl launched a shorter man like a projectile. Mai and Kenzie helped create space around the Roma, and Hayden and Kinimaka dragged the fire eater free.

  But more of Hagi’s men came, and they were battling with Lupei’s fighters. Some had no idea whose side people were on. A tight knot of people swarmed toward Drake.

  “Shit...”

  And then, in a surreal twist that he never could have imagined, Drake found himself battling in tandem with the burlesque dancers as, in desperation, they and their assistants and bosses joined the fight. They’d seen enough. They knew who to protect and stand with. Drake fought shoulder to shoulder with women clad in black lingerie, admiring their knife-play and fist-fighting, trying to catch Dahl’s eye when the fighting lulled for a few seconds.

  Finally, the big Swede glanced at him.

  Drake gave him a huge thumbs up.

  Dahl grinned and yelled back. “Doesn’t get any better than this.”

  Kenzie gave him a savage look. Drake saw the dancer at his side stagger under an assault; he grabbed the attacker by the throat and squeezed hard. The man clawed at Drake’s wrists, leaving his own stomach vulnerable to the dancer’s knife. The man fell, gurgling, into mud and water.

  Drake saw Mai fighting in tandem with another dancer, using the woman’s attacks to fall upon distracted opponents. Hayden and Kinimaka formed a circle, back to back, with three more dancers, taking on all-comers. Every enemy that ran or crawled out of those collapsing tents was taken down.

  Drake viewed the rest of the carnival battleground. Everywhere, the Roma that worked there were fighting for their home ground. Drake dropped to one knee and shot two men that were harassing the owner of the donut stand. A dancer stepped in front of him, slashing at a man that appeared out of nowhere, axe in hand.

  Dahl turned to them all. “We have the advantage,” he yelled, brandishing a hammer. “Let’s charge them!”

  Jesus Christ, the Swede’s lost it, Drake thought.

  But then he understood. A group of Hagi’s men had surrounded the Ferris wheel. They were attacking the owners and rocking the great wheel, trying to force it to fall over. The Ferris wheel was a symbol, the heart of the carnival. It meant much to the Roma folk.

  When the dancers and everyone else around saw what was happening, they roared, brandished their weapons, and started a charge. Drake found himself propelled along at the heart of the assault, spurred by the passion and glory of it, alongside the Roma people, surrounded by dancers and knife throwers, by strong men and stall owners, by the woman that spun the sugar, by the man that loaded shot at the rifle range, by young and old, and strong and weak, all united and made family by their single goal.

  To save the Carnival.

  The Ferris wheel, standing tall and brightly lit against the black, rainswept sky, swayed against its support towers, leaning menacingly first one way and then the next. Its cars rattled against the wheel’s enormous spokes.

  As one, Drake’s group crashed into the male unit trying to bring the Ferris wheel down, slashing and hammering them to the ground. The strong man rushed to one of the rocking steel scaffolds, trying to steady it and was joined by Dahl and Kinimaka. Together, the three helped steady the sway.

  Drake broke away from the fight, searching for those members of the team not present.

  “There,” Hayden said, also searching. “Still by the trucks. Alicia, Cam and Shawnasee are with Cam’s brothers. Lupei and Hagi are trading insults. I see Dumitrescu’s soldiers still cutting people down.”

  Drake pointed into the dark. “We can get at the soldiers from behind. Stop that part of the carnage.”

  “I thought you said they were following orders,” Hayden said.

  “Not now. Look at them. Mostly, they’re enjoying themselves. Not even caring who they’re shooting at. The blood has gone to their heads. Come on, guys.”

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  Across the battleground that had been the Carnival of Curiosities, the Roma clans fought for their way of life.

  Alicia saw the deadly encounter by the Ferris wheel and also noticed Drake surrounded by scantily clad women, something that would need to be addressed later; although her main area of concern would be, “Why the fuck didn’t you send any male dancers my way?”

  She saw Dumitrescu’s troops massing and shooting indiscriminately, Hagi and Lupei meeting in anger, and Lupei’s wife—Aurelia—directing their own men to fall on the Hagis from behind.

  To her right, Cam traded blows with Mihai. To her left, Shaw fought Nicu. In front of her, Stevo slouched, drawing a thumb across the bloodied lip that Alicia had just given him.

  “I will break you,” he said and lunged for her.

  Alicia slipped deftly away, drawing him to her right where he slipped in the mud. When his right leg flew from under him, Alicia leapt and came down with an elbow, smashing him across the face. Cam was besting his younger brother, and Shaw had Nicu on his knees.

  “It’s not looking good for you,” Alicia said.

  “Lupei has owned this country for a century,” Stevo snarled. “We will always own this country.”

  “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Alicia said as she rained blows down on him. “But that’s not strictly true. Actually, it’s a barefaced lie. The only thing you’ve been masters of is your own stupidity.”

  Stevo squirmed in the mud and grabbed her around the knees. Alicia fell into another knot of men, using their bodies to keep her straight. Stevo was scrabbling at her feet.

  “Typical,” she said and gave him a kick.

  *

  Cam stood back from Mihai, still begging his brother to see sense.

  “Just look around,” he said. “Always, this is what Father wanted. Always, he chose violence o
ver serenity. He molded you using the worst parts of himself, into the worst version of himself. But you can break the mold now. Break free.”

  Mihai’s face was twisted, not with sudden anger but with the terrible weight of indecision. The man in him that knew Cam was right was being held at bay by the man Lupei had molded. The latter was stronger.

  “We’re gonna kill you,” was all he said before attacking Cam with both arms swinging. The sloppy assault was born of rage. Cam defended it, skipped aside, and gave Mihai one last chance.

  “Your home, the carnival, has become a theater of war. A bloody field littered with the dead. Those are Roma, brother. Roma. Your people and mine. Our father has you murdering them. Is there not a better way?”

  Mihai sobbed, almost torn in two by conflicting emotion. He wavered, but Cam knew what he’d do. Lupei had taught his sons to lash out at anything that troubled or offended them. In this purgatory now, Mihai struck out, lunging forward.

  Cam leapt away, turning his head to the left. “I think we need to find and neutralize the source of this madness,” he said, using the comms.

  Alicia heard him and nodded. “Received and understood, mate. Shaw, put that motherfucker down. We’re going straight for the source.”

  Shaw let Nicu fall to the ground. “Cool.”

  *

  Drake raced through the mud and puddles, splashing through mire and sludge, with his friends at his side. The rain bounced off them in droplets that were reflected by the sparkling carnival lights. They crossed behind the Ferris wheel and angled back around to an unlit area behind the parked trucks and vans; the place where Lupei had initially been hiding. Drake ducked behind a sixteen-wheeler and beckoned his team forward.

  “Load up and fire everything,” he said. “We hit the soldiers from the back and don’t stop until they’re taken care of. Got it?”

  “Go on without me,” Dahl whispered. “I have an idea.”

  Drake cringed a little. Still, he’d rather have the mad bastard on his side than not. Carefully, he made his way along the side of the sixteen-wheeler and then the transit van in front, arriving at the edge of the field. Ahead, the soldiers were massed, moving very little and taking potshots at the embattled crowd. Some were even taking bets and laughing, exchanging money. Drake knew right then that his decision had been sound.

  “Hit them,” he breathed into the comms.

  In a single row, they paced out into the field, guns held against their shoulders. Drake loosed the first shot, taking out a man targeting a group of young fighters, shooting him in the back of the thigh. Then Kenzie, Hayden and Kinimaka opened fire, closely followed by Mai.

  The soldiers yelled and turned, still about fifty strong. Bullets withered their number, taking dozens of them down, wounding others. The lead assault was relentless, Drake and the others switching skillfully from target to target. Very few shots were returned, and most of those zinged skyward as the shooters fell, fingers locked around their triggers. The SPEAR team took the battleground and the advantage from the soldiers, thinning them so that many were forced to take cover behind the still-twitching bodies of their fellow comrades.

  Inevitably, some rallied. They grouped together or lay flat on the ground, lining up their attackers. Hayden caught a bullet in the vest and fell gasping. Mai felt one sear past her right ear. Drake sensed another parting the air above his head.

  “Down.”

  They went flat, hugging the ground. It was turning into a stand-off. Drake guessed the soldiers were down to their last twenty men but those few could still pin his team down indefinitely. Using patience and skill they picked off another six, but the battle still raged beyond the soldiers, the Roma still fought for their lives, and the Hagis still advanced through the carnival.

  Another minute passed. Drake flinched as thunder clapped and lightning tore apart the skies above. Two sizzling forks touched down not a mile away, scorching the air and the earth. Almost impossibly another blast of thunder exploded seconds later, but then his stunned brain realized that this wasn’t thunder at all.

  It was Torsten Dahl.

  The Mad Swede sat at the wheel of a truck, boot holding the gas pedal to the floor. Drake knew this because the engine was screaming, roaring, drowning out everything else. The vehicle bounced over ruts and crashed through puddles and piles of mud, sending fountains of sludge spraying left and right. The Swede’s face was at the windshield, teeth bared as he gripped the wheel as tightly as he could.

  Drake and the others rolled frantically out of his way.

  Dahl threw the truck into a sideways drift as it approached the entrenched soldiers, kicking up a bow wave of mud and water. The filth covered them entirely, its momentum knocking them down. The brown surf filled the air, blocking everything from sight, spreading far and wide. As it settled, Dahl leaned out of his window, gun in one hand.

  Drake heard the M4 discharging with a steady rattle, and ran the hundred feet or so to the side of the still revving truck. With Hayden and Kinimaka at his back he came around the front end, to see a chaos of mud, huge piles of it, completely covering the area where the soldiers had been. If there was any movement, Dahl was concisely putting an end to it.

  “Bloody hell,” Drake said over the comms. “You drowned them in shit.”

  “You’re welcome.” Dahl jumped from the cab and joined them, ejecting the mag from his M4 and reloading. “That should ease the odds for the Roma.”

  “Which ones?” Mai agonized. “They’re killing each other.”

  Drake pointed to a spot a few hundred yards ahead and to the right. “Lupei and Hagi next,” he said. “Come on.”

  As one, the team moved out.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  It was the most active area of the carnival. Hagi and Lupei fought in front of the Wall of Death. Drake wished someone would turn off the pulsating, pounding music, but then Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir came on and he could almost believe the gods had decided to smile on him.

  “Is there a better song to fight a fucking war to?” he shouted before realizing no one could hear him as they came closer to the wall. But it didn’t matter. Hagi and Lupei were trading blows and blood before an extremely fitting backdrop. The Madhouse squatted to their left, two stories of illogical chaos where floors dropped from underneath you and walls tried to crush you; its frenetic lights whirling and shining this way and that. Twin floodlights shone from the top straight up at the rain-soaked sky, picking out sweeping showers of water as they drifted from north to south.

  And all around them, their guards fought.

  Drake smashed a man across the head and kicked in the spine of another, finished with this madness now. It had to end. Some kind of spade slashed past his head and then a garden rake, the tines wicked enough to send a chill down his spine. Drake snapped the rake and battered its owner with the two halves before catching the spade on its next swing, breaking the owner’s wrist and clattering him into oblivion with the flat metal part.

  By the time Drake looked up, Dahl and Kenzie were approaching Hagi and Lupei.

  The two architects of all this madness were slouched, catching their breath, soaked through and standing amid churned up mud. Their chests were heaving, their fists and faces pouring blood. The pounding beat of Led Zeppelin surrounded them as much as the pouring rain.

  “One chance.” Dahl leveled his gun at Lupei. “Stop this.”

  “Stop it?” Lupei roared. “Stop it? I’m winning!”

  “Nobody wins!” came a sudden howl from someone to their right. “Everyone loses. You’re killing your own people, Father!”

  Lupei squinted through the storm and the fighting crowd. One eye was swollen, the other squinting badly. It only took a second for him to recognize the speaker though.

  “Camden? What the fuck are you doing here, boy?”

  “I came to stop you.” Cam stumbled through the fighting, dragging himself clear. One of the brothers—Mihai, Drake thought—was chasing him down and looking far the
worse for wear.

  “I will kill you, boy.” Lupei turned his back on his archenemy and stalked toward Cam. “Put yourself before the family, will you? Run away with your dumb sister, will you? I can’t believe you’re stupid enough to come back here.”

  Lupei started beating on Cam, throwing punch after punch. Hagi stood, dripping wet, looking bemused and a little lost. Drake started toward Cam, but Alicia beat him to it, flying in with a protective yell and shoving Lupei back onto his haunches.

  Alicia turned the cold barrel of her M4 on the fallen man, her finger on the trigger. Lupei looked up at her, squinting hard, perhaps at first wondering if she was Ruby but then clearly seeing she wasn’t and noting the serious weapon in her hand.

  “Bitch,” he said.

  Alicia fired, but Cam had already reached out and lifted her barrel into the air. The bullet passed overhead, smashing through the Madhouse.

  Alicia turned to Cam. “Are you kidding?”

  “He’s my father,” Cam said simply. “He may deserve a thousand deaths, but that man bleeds my blood all over this carnival ground. We were born here, and we should die here. We are the Carnival. Everything you see, from the entrance timbers to the Ferris wheel is touched with and built of our blood.”

  Lupei was leaking a great deal of his, back into the earth, a fitting sight. Alicia growled at Cam. “So what you gonna do? Reason with this idiot?”

  Cam took out his knife. “No,” he said. “I’ll kill him myself.”

  The knife slashed down. Lupei backed away, scrambling hard. A blur shot through the mists of rain and bundled into Cam, knocking him off his feet. It was Mihai. The boy had come to save his father.

  Cam sprawled in the mud. Mihai grabbed Lupei, and the two staggered away.

  It was madness and chaos and lurid, ear-splitting combat. Drake saw Hagi shamble toward the Madhouse’s entrance steps, climb the three risers, and then shout at one of his guards: “Rifle!”