The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

by Алекс Р. Калер A. R. Kahler

  The crowd files in one-by-one, handing the guards their ticket in exchange for a mask. So far, everyone ahead of me is given a white mask, which makes the panic start to slide through my veins. Melody’s warning rings in my ear. She wouldn’t put me into a dangerous situation, though, right?

  It’s not for people like you…for mortals.

  I grip the ticket tighter. The music from inside the tent vibrates through my bones, growing louder every time someone pushes aside the flap and enters the dimly lit interior. I can’t make out anything inside. Minutes scrape by and then I’m standing up front. My heart’s in my chest as I hand over my ticket. For a brief moment, I wonder if being caught and turned away would be worse than being let in.

  The guard examines it and pushes up her sunglasses.

  “Vivienne?” she asks.

  I gulp. I don’t really recognize her — she’s got pink hair and brown eyes and a slight figure. A single silver ring is in her nose. I know I’ve seen her, but the Shifters tend to keep to themselves. A couple hellos were all I got when I signed on, and after the first day, our paths never really crossed.

  “Yeah.”

  She chuckles and looks to the guard on the other side, a tall dark man with vibrant red dreads pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Kids grow up fast, don’t they?” the guy says.

  The woman slips the card into her pocket and hands me a mask. Black.

  “Have fun,” is all she says. I look down at the mask in my hands, then step forward through the curtain.

  It’s like stepping into another world.

  The tent is enormous on the inside. The draping walls and roof are beautiful strips of purple and black. Sconces and chandeliers of glass and iron hang from the ceiling, flickering with firelight. Aerialists dangle and pose from hoops and slings, each wearing less than the last. Everywhere I turn there are half-naked bodies, men in suits without shirts, women in corsets and torn evening gowns, all of them in black masks. The masks have curving noses or devil horns, all of them looking like demons in some sort of erotic masquerade. The floor of the tent is covered in black rugs and plush chaise longues, leather armchairs, and glass tables. In one corner, a girl is inverting herself on a tall pole; in another, a contortionist wearing little more than string and mesh is twisting her body on a table covered in wineglasses. Underneath it all, underneath the moving and sweating and grinding, the music pulses like another frantic heart.

  There’s a hand on my arm and I look over to see Mab staring down at me — there’s no mistaking her, even with her mask.

  “Tsk tsk, Vivienne,” she says, and I know she’s about to tell me off for entering uninvited. Like I said, I always get caught. But all she says is, “This is no place for nudity.” She grins. “Mask on at all times. Please.” She winks and turns away. I reach up and tie the mask to my face.

  For a while I just stand there, completely at a loss. This isn’t anything I’m used to. I seem to be the only one, though. The white-masked punters are completely enthralled by the music and scandal, drawn into a world I couldn’t have prepared myself to be a part of. I watch as one man laughs amid a group of black-masked men and women, completely oblivious to the fact that the performers are pulling his clothes off one article at a time. A woman across from me reaches up and is pulled onto one of the steel hoops, smiling as her heels fall into a punch bowl with a clatter. And on the sofas…there’s much less clothing and much more giggling and grinding. Even behind the mask I can feel myself blushing.

  It’s not until someone bumps into me from behind that I realize I’m still standing by the tent’s entrance. Every time someone in a white mask comes in, someone in black comes forward to pull them deeper. No one does that to me, probably because I’m already in the black. I walk to one side of the tent and grab a glass of red wine, watching the sin unfold and kind of wishing I’d taken Kingston’s advice and stayed far, far away. I take a drink and hope the wine will help me accomplish just that.

  A topless woman with a white mask comes up to the wine table and reaches out, grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me closer.

  “Are you on the menu too?” she whispers, her words slurred. How are these people already so drunk?

  “Not tonight,” I say.

  She exaggerates a pout, but lets go and turns away. I take another drink of the wine and try to sink back into the shadows. But everything in the tent is shadow and candlelight and bass. There’s no getting away from it. After a few more minutes of feeling like a horrible voyeur, I decide this really isn’t my scene, that Kingston was right. This wasn’t for people like me, though I have no idea how being mortal plays into it. I set the glass down and turn away, head to the exit. Only there is no exit. I spin around and try to find the black curtain, but it’s not there. Just purple and black walls.

  “Going somewhere?” a man beside me asks, snagging my sleeve with a finger. He’s wearing a black mask, but I’ve never seen him before. He’s tall, very tall, and lithe. His eyes are shining blue behind his mask, and there’s a blue feather boa around his bare shoulders. His muscular chest and stomach are covered in intricate tattoos.

  A woman slides up next to him, also in a black mask. She’s wearing a V-necked red dress that dips dangerously below her navel. I focus on her eyes, which are warm amber. If those tits are real, I’ll eat my wineglass.

  “She must be new,” the Playboy model says. She reaches out and slides one sharp finger under my chin. The man’s hand reaches up to my shoulder, though it doesn’t stay there long. For some reason, I don’t have the will to push it away when his touch slides toward my chest. They’re both so close I want to back away, but there’s nowhere to go, and I have a feeling it would be worse than bad manners if I did. I don’t move and try not to flinch as their touches grow bolder.

  “Mab told me about you,” the woman continues, “her latest acquisition to this menagerie. I’m quite surprised she let you in, considering…” but she doesn’t say why, just smirks and steps back, scratching my skin in the process.

  I don’t rub the spot, just keep focused on her eyes. The man’s hand has found its way to my hip. His touch is colder than ice.

  “Come on, Fritz. Let’s enjoy the party.” She puts an arm over his shoulder and he wraps an arm around her waist, and then they’re sliding back into the crowd. The tingle of his fingertips still clings to my skin like frostbite.

  I look around. It hadn’t hit me how many people there were in the tent; the people in black masks far outnumber the white. Mab’s been inviting people in, and it’s clear from their garb that they know the occasion well. I watch as two men in black masks and torn suits tilt a white-masked guy’s head back, pouring wine down his throat. Oh yes, they know the occasion well. The music pulses, the heat grows. Something deep down inside of me is growling. It doesn’t want to be sitting in a corner. It feels the music. It wants out. It wants to play.

  On a chaise longue in front of me, a man is stripped naked, except for his porcelain mask. Black-masked men and women caress his arms and thighs and neck with fingers and tongues. The man groans as one of the men bites into his hip. The sight of it makes my heart thud faster, and my fingers grip tighter at my side. A small trail of blood drips down his pale skin but he doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, he reaches down and runs his fingers through the man’s hair as he laps up the blood, slowly, slowly licking.

  “Trust me, dear, he isn’t to your taste.”

  It’s Mab. She stands beside me with a grin on her lips and a drink in her hand, watching as her black-masked patrons bite and lick and bleed her guest.

  “What…what is this?”

  “If you’re interested,” she says, ignoring the question, “there’s a delightful young man next to the birdcage. Twenty-one, wishes to be a dentist…”

  “I don’t…” The man being drained is writhing in ecstasy or agony. More and more black-masked patrons come in to bow at his side, and bring their lips to his bleeding flesh like some lustful Communion.
No one comes to his aid; no one seems to notice anything is even wrong. Around him, couples and groups are locked in limbs and lips as they sway to the hypnotic music. No one in a white mask is clothed or alone, not that I can see.

  “In that case, what about the young woman being entertained on the hoop over there? I don’t judge. Besides, she’s much too young for Stephanie.”

  “I’m not…” I glance over to where she’s pointing, to the girl hanging naked on one of the hoops, her arms bound above her head and a woman running her hands over her chest and back. Red lines trace themselves into her skin, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain. If she is, she likes it.

  “You see, Vivienne,” Mab says. She takes a sip from her glass. “We are the peddlers of dreams. Some people come to see a show, but for many, that isn’t enough. Their dreams are darker, less...publicly recognized. And as I said, I am a humanitarian. This is my way of giving them what they truly, deeply desire. This is how we get the strongest dreams of all.”

  “You’re killing them,” I say. I can barely see the man on the chaise longue through the crowd of hungry patrons.

  Mab shrugs.

  “Not everyone wishes to live forever.” She sets her glass down on the table and takes a half step forward. Then she stops and looks back. “Although we cater to all wants here — even voyeurism — I might recommend leaving. The party’s just beginning, and I doubt you’d want to be here when the Night Terrors arrive.” She winks like it’s our little joke and slips into the crowd, disappearing in the sea of black masks and ball gowns.

  A cool breeze blows at the back of my neck. I turn. There, like a deeper shadow on the wall, is the entrance. I move toward it and then close my eyes. The music behind me is a hook, an anchor. The fire in me burns, wants to lose itself in the throng. But all I can picture is the bleeding man. I try to block out how his blood would taste, how his skin would feel beneath my fingertips. I bite my lip until I taste my own blood and force myself to leave the tent. When the flap closes behind me, the cool air hits me like a snap to my senses. I drop my mask on the table and head to my trailer.

  I don’t look back.

  By the time I’m a few steps away, I’m running.

  * * *

  “How’d it go?” Melody asks.

  She’s sitting on a lawn chair in front of the trailer, right outside the door to my bunk. She’s got a shit-eating grin on her face and a book in her hands.

  “I hate you,” I say. I put a hand on my door.

  “I warned you,” she says. “It’s for your own good.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “I just watched…” I pause, trying to find the right words. “Actually, I have no fucking clue what I just watched.”

  “Probably exactly what you think you did.”

  “What was that?”

  She gives me a small smile.

  “You know those stories you heard growing up? All those fairy tales about shadows in the woods and monsters under your bed?”

  I nod slowly.

  “Yeah, well, that’s the Winter Court. They’re the creatures you’re taught to fear. Once every couple of sites, Mab throws a party for her most beloved subjects.”

  “Now you’re just being a bitch.”

  “What?”

  “You seriously expect me to believe that Mab — Mab, who is currently wearing a teddy as an evening gown — is the queen of the faeries? Like Shakespeare’s Queen of the Faeries?”

  “She’s older than Shakespeare,” she says as though it’s obvious. “She just liked him well enough to let him write about her.”

  I sigh and lean against the trailer, which makes the whole thing rock a little. Hopefully it didn’t wake anyone up.

  “This place is fucked up,” I say.

  “What was your first clue? Signing your name in blood?”

  I close my eyes. The memory is vivid, the sear of pain as my name inked itself on the final line on a blurry page of contractual obligations. I hear the creak of Mel’s chair as she stands and steps over to me. She puts her hand on my shoulder.

  “I know how it feels. Most of these performers, they’ve been here thirty or forty years. They forget what it feels like to be the new girl. I’ve only been here for five. Some days the first day feels like yesterday.”

  I force away the images of the tent and try to focus instead on this moment, on the kindness in her words. This is the first time we’ve really gotten the chance to talk, at least without Kingston around. I want to hate her for giving me the ticket, but it’s hard to be mad at someone who’s actually seriously seeing you when no one else does. Would she still look at me that way if she knew what I thought of her boyfriend? I try to shove my guilt and the question down to a place neither of us can see it.

  I open my eyes.

  “I’ve got your back,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say. Would you still, if you knew how I feel about Kingston?

  “Of course.”

  She smiles and steps back, walks over and picks up the book from where she dropped it on the ground. Then she turns to me.

  “That’s why I’m going to tell you to be careful.”

  “What do you mean? You’re the one who gave me the ticket.”

  She shakes her head.

  “You had the black mask. At worst, you’d have seen a couple mortals get eaten in some sexually frustrating way. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about earlier.”

  “You think people will suspect me?”

  “I think you’re liable to make them suspect you. I know that look,” she says. “Today, when we were practicing. It’s the I think I can be a heroine look. But shit’s going down and people are getting hurt, and the last thing you should be doing is getting involved. Got it?”

  “Yeah.”

  She sighs.“I wish I was fey.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then, you telling me you'll stay out of trouble would be binding. Like, contractually so.”

  “I won’t get involved. You’re right. Mab’s got it covered.”

  Melody just laughs and walks over to the trailer facing mine.

  “My second piece of advice is to work on your lying. Otherwise you won’t make it another month.”

  She looks over to where the VIP tent is. I follow her gaze. There are shadows moving in the field, dark, lumbering shapes that I can tell without doubt are far from human.

  “Mab told you about the Night Terrors?” Mel asks.

  I nod.

  “Yeah, that’s them now. I wouldn’t recommend lingering if you’re hoping for some decent sleep.” She winks. “‘Night, doll.”

  Then she steps into her bunk without looking back.

  Once she’s safely inside her trailer, I look down the row at the door I know is Kingston’s. The light’s off. It’s late, yeah, and he could be fast asleep. But for a moment, I can’t help but wonder if the reason he didn’t want me to go to Noir was because he didn’t want me to see him behaving like…like the others. The question is: Am I glad I didn’t see him, or just disappointed?

  * * *

  I can still feel the music in my veins as I undress and get under the covers. For the first time since I signed on, my bunk door is locked. There’s also a pocketknife hiding under my pillow, though I have a sinking suspicion that it wouldn’t do much good if Kingston was wrong and I was the next target. In spite of all that — in spite of all the fear I know I should be feeling — I’m not scared. The music from the tent pulses, drowning out everything except the most primal instincts. As always, the circus still feels safe. Like how home should be, not that I really have anything to compare it to. I close my eyes and try to sleep. When that doesn’t work I stare at the thin light splashed across my ceiling, and try to ignore the muffled snores coming from the bunk next to mine. I want sleep to come, want to forget everything about the Tapis Noir, everything from the shit-show that was today. But I can’t. Every time I close my eyes I see the man being eaten alive. Every time I close my eyes, h
is face becomes Kingston’s.

  I can’t tell if the image repulses or arouses me.

  That alone scares me more than Sabina’s murder or whatever creatures Mab invited over for dinner.

  Chapter Three: Mer Girl

  The sun is just rising above the woods to the east, but the pie cart is already bustling as the cast and crew ready for the next jump. Off to one side, mulling over cups of coffee and cigarettes, are the Shifters, no longer decked out in suits and sleek sunglasses. Instead, everyone is covered in ink and piercings and ragged denim. The men have mohawks or no hair at all, and the girls have multicolored dreads. On jump days, they play tent crew. Odd to think that seeing them like this seems more normal than when they’re dressed up. One of them nods when he sees me glance over, and I nod before looking back to my friends. Melody is wrapped in a gray knit shawl, and Kingston wears his university hoodie. Each is nursing a coffee and cinnamon roll.

  When I woke up this morning, the VIP tent and all its inhabitants were gone. The parking lot on the other side of the road, however, still has a few cars waiting like tombstones. I don’t mention it. To her credit, Melody says nothing about our encounter or the ticket. Kingston doesn’t give her the chance.

  “I still say you should tell her,” he whispers.

  “They’re just nightmares,” Melody says, giving her head a shake. “Everyone gets those.”

  “Really?” he asks, then looks at me. It’s enough to make my heart do a double-step. It doesn’t help that when I see him, I can only picture him in place of the man on the chaise longue. “Been dreaming much lately, Vivienne?”

  I take a drink of my coffee and try not to wince at the bitterness. These carnies like it strong.