by K. F. Breene
“It has not so much as twitched in our direction. And no, at this distance, with the muted quality of this place, and with how low we are speaking, it shouldn’t be able to hear us. Not that it will matter.”
Confident much? I had a feeling the other side of the river would cut that right out.
“That mage pair no longer exists,” Darius said, still not advancing. “One of them, the older of the brothers, died somewhere in Europe. He was on the council of the Mages’ Guild, but it’s rumored he didn’t like the direction the guild was going. He tried to amass support to reject certain changes. Soon after, he went on a business trip with a few of his followers. He never came back.”
“And his followers pled ignorance?”
“Only one follower lived. You can guess which position he now occupies.”
“Yikes. I barely know those crooked bastards, and I hate them.” I braced my hands on my hips, because I needed to make a move soon. I was stalling. I knew it, Darius must’ve known it, and the deaf-mute in the boat probably knew it. The faker.
“The younger brother, Emery, went off the grid after that. He went rogue. He pops up now and again, but when he disappears and doesn’t want to be found, he can’t be.”
I thought back, because this sounded familiar. “Is he a handsome guy?” Darius’s look darkened. I threw up my hands. “Not that I’m interested. I just remember Callie mentioning a powerful mage that was off-grid.”
“Why did she mention it to you?” Jealousy tinged his words, and I couldn’t help a laugh. Learning to feel again came with some unpleasant side effects, it would seem.
It occurred to me that the troubles in the magical world were much more strained than I’d originally thought. Each magical faction was at odds with another. I didn’t like that Darius was making plans to get involved, even if I knew he’d attempt to be stealthy. There was no way I wanted anything to do with any of that. I needed to keep my head down and get out of here without getting discovered, now more than ever.
After that, I could work on talking Darius into a nice, quiet life without demons and intensely powerful mages. I didn’t want to set off a magical war like a powder keg.
As always, that was easier said than done where it concerned me. I was a bad idea playing out at the best of times.
“So I could snap a picture if I ever saw him and pin it up on my wall. No biggie,” I said. “Anyway, let’s do this. We can’t stand here all day.”
Darius’s stare held mine for a moment before he finally tore his gaze away and directed it at the boat. “At some point,” he said, “one of these boats must be gone when someone arrives to use it.”
I walked forward. “Yeah, I don’t know how that works.” I hadn’t thought to look when I was messing with things. “We can ask Mr. Patient, there. Assuming he can hear at all.”
I stopped beside the boat, which did not bob or move. A rope attached to the side of the boat had been looped around a metal tie down on the dock, though maybe that, too, was just for show.
“Hi,” I said tentatively.
That was English, Darius thought.
I didn’t know how to speak the demonic language on cue. Or even if there was more than one.
“Can I have a ride?” I stuck my thumb out like an idiot before ripping it back down.
The creature in the boat continued to stare straight ahead.
I stepped into the boat. It rocked like I’d expect from a normal boat, and didn’t at all expect from the magical boat. My weight tilted it, sending me sprawling. I banged my knee on a wooden seat and fell against the side, getting splashed for my efforts.
I wiped away the water—which felt normal, if dirty—and sat up quickly. “My bad. I wasn’t expecting that.”
The creature continued staring straight ahead, right past me.
Darius stepped in a moment later, annoyingly graceful even when the boat pitched. He smoothly sat down.
The creature came to life, if that was what you would call it. Its head turned slowly until its eyeholes pointed at me.
“Who are you?” the creature asked in a flat, sandpaper voice.
“I am the egg man,” I said seriously.
Darius slightly shook his head. He probably also rolled his eyes.
“Egg man,” the creature said. Its head slowly turned to Darius. The suit wasn’t hiding him from the boat captain. “Who are you?”
Darius stared at him for a beat. “I am the walrus.”
I couldn’t help myself. I was a Beatles fan. “Goo goo g’joob.”
“Walrus,” the creature said, ignoring my soft singing. It switched its sightless gaze to staring between us. “Where do you go?”
Before I could say “Across the river,” Darius said, “East shores, regio Festum.”
“I really need to look at that map,” I said softly, then snapped my mouth shut, in case mentioning a map was as much of a tell as pointing a huge arrow at my head with spy written across it. It wasn’t like this was a theme park and people went around handing out maps.
The creature reached out with a bony hand—and I mean bony, as in “not covered with skin”—and unstrung the rope. The boat calmly drifted away from the pier, but I felt a subtle rocking and bumping that didn’t match the smooth expanse around us. But I’d seen what these waters really looked like; the magic was strong to keep us this level.
“Do you ever throw anyone overboard?” I asked the creature.
It didn’t answer.
We drifted away from the dock quickly, reminding me of the fast-moving current I had seen. No other docks showed themselves.
“Because you lot don’t seem impressed with strangers,” I continued, analyzing it. The eyeholes weren’t gory. They reminded me of a doll’s eye socket after the marble had fallen out. Creepy, sure, but not necessarily icky. “If someone died in that fog, you’d get up and toss them over, wouldn’t you?”
It continued to stare.
The nose was tiny, a little button that wouldn’t be much good for smelling. The lips, full but leathery, curved halfway across its face, the mouth too big. When it threw on a smile, if it ever did, the effect would no doubt be startling.
The dock fell out of sight and the fog evaporated into the air. Barren beaches seemed to stretch on forever on either side under the limitless gray sky. The boat hung in visibly motionless water, yet I continued to feel the minuscule bumping and rocking.
My body said, You are floating. My eyes said, You are sitting still. My social perception said, Mr. Undertaker is making things awkward.
A drop of liquid splatted against the creature’s forehead. As though we had run into it. As though we were going at high speed.
It didn’t react to the projectile water splat. Like it had never happened.
“I feel like I’m dreaming, but I know I’m awake, and it is really stressing me out.” I leaned forward and stared at my feet. “Is this a long journey?”
Just like before, I received no answer.
Darius reached over and took my hand. Like a hound dog salivating over a bone in its master’s hand, I watched his thumb trace across mine. Then slide back. Over. Back.
It wasn’t the touch that was a comfort, so much as seeing his finger move while feeling the movement. That made sense.
I had to keep myself from looking around at everything that didn’t make sense.
“The boatmen are insane.” I jumped when a drop of water hit the back of my head. “They have to be. I’m well on my way, and I haven’t been here long.”
You will get used to this, mon ange. Have patience. New vampires go through a similar mental culling.
Mental culling?
I didn’t ask for specifics. It wouldn’t help. I needed to get out of this damn boat. It was bending my brain in terrible ways.
Time ticked by. Too slowly. I watched Darius’s thumb and focused on the movement, until I noticed a change. It was subtle at first, a slight movement in my peripheral vision. Shortly thereafter, I noticed we
were drifting closer to the opposite bank.
Hell, maybe the bank was drifting toward us. Anything was possible in this horror show.
I looked over my shoulder, relieved to see a pier like the one we’d left. The boat stopped at the end, waiting patiently for Mr. Undertaker to come to life and refasten the rope.
The creature’s head turned to me. “Safe travels, Egg Man.” Then to Darius, “Safe travels, Walrus.”
“Goo goo g’ joob,” I said miserably.
“No fog,” Darius said as we walked along the pier. Was it me, or did I hear relief in his voice?
“I’m apparently pretty powerful, regardless of how well I know my magic, and still you felt a lot of pain going through. How could someone bonded to a lesser-powered demon make it?”
He shook his head and looked back the way we’d come. Mr. Undertaker was still there, staring straight ahead. Waiting. “I can’t say. It might have something to do with age. I doubt Moss would’ve been able to cross, even with the bond, and if he had, he would’ve needed to recoup for much longer.”
Ah. So while I’d been stalling with the chatting, he’d been shaking off the fog burn. Interesting.
“So, maybe Ja was just that much older.” We neared the end of the pier. Oh, goody. Another never-ending beach.
“That’s the thing. She wasn’t much older than I am now when she went into the Dark Kingdom. She didn’t seem overly concerned about the fog when we talked.”
“On average, women do have a higher threshold of pain. Maybe you’re just a wimp.”
He frowned at me as we reached the end of the pier.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. There was no telling how long I’d have the opportunity. “Let’s get through the illusion veil. Once we’re inside, we’ll hunker down and take a look at that map. I need a game plan. Then we’ll run at Agnon and the sect that’s got him, kill them all, and get the hell out of here. And so help me God, if the damn ceiling drips on me in there, I’m going to punch someone.”
“With whose fist?” Darius’s lips quirked into a lopsided grin.
Another thing I would never live down.
I stepped off the pier and jolted as my foot sank into the ground.
Correction: I jolted as I stepped onto hard mud that shouldn’t have had the give of wet straw.
My vision warred with my sensory perception as I forced myself forward. My boots shone at the tread, indicating wetness that went with the soggy feeling of sinking. By sight, we still traversed hard, dried mud.
A few moments later, we stepped through the invisible line. The barrenness of the beach disappeared, and a new scene took its place.
I stopped dead for a moment as my brain tried to adjust. And failed.
Darius didn’t prod me forward, but grabbed me around the waist and hurried out of sight.
Chapter Seventeen
An enormous circus tent rose in front of us, blasting neon from every surface. We had a side view of a gigantic green Ferris wheel with a big grinning face on the spoke, rolling over and over. Flashing lights outlined a loop-de-loop roller coaster, which seemed to emanate screams. Fireworks exploded in the distance, pinks and purples and greens and blues.
The pathway leading up to all this strobed color in little squares, blinking quickly. Above it all, permeating everything, was the bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom of circus music.
“I don’t like this,” I said with a dry mouth.
We stopped behind a camping-sized yellow tent and crouched into freshly layered sawdust. Darius pulled off his backpack and unzipped it.
I crawled to the edge of our cover and peered around. An elephant with shaggy, clumped fur rolled by on four independent beach balls. Its tasseled hat didn’t need a string to remain on its head. Beyond it, strutting around with a big stomach and a weird cackle, was a clown. A clown.
My eyes went wide and I yanked myself back. “Look, I can handle demons. Fire, brimstone, damned souls—all that I can handle. But clowns? I don’t think I can handle clowns. Especially evil-looking clowns like that one.”
Darius unrolled the parchment.
“I mean…” I palmed my forehead. “I expected a dark kingdom, not a circus on crack.”
“You okay?” Darius asked.
I gave him an incredulous look and shoved my finger in the direction of Cirque du LSD. “Are you serious with that question?”
A smile graced his lips. He clearly didn’t have a newly realized phobia of circuses like I did.
“From what I understand, on the outskirts and less-traveled parts of the Dark Kingdom, Lucifer allows the sects free rein. If the sect likes circuses, and they have the magical ability, power, and space to create one, they can. As you see. Also remember that the more powerful demons can change form.”
I knew that, but an elephant with weird fur rolling around on beach balls?
I rubbed my eyes. I needed to stop fighting all this. One thing seemed certain: it wasn’t going to get any better. If anything, it would get a whole lot worse. “Okay, fine. So what’s next?”
Darius turned the parchment so I could see it. Clearly marked was the sect of the demon who’d made the map. That demon had also indicated a preferred point of entry, which was titled South Shore and had a note in Latin pertaining to paradise.
I gave Darius the side-eye. “We could have gone to paradise, and you chose the insane circus?”
He ignored me. “If we had landed there, the demon’s sect would have been on the way to our destination.” He traced a dotted line to a circle in the middle of the map.
“Our destination is very close to the castle, which I assume has my fa—Lucifer in it.”
“We need to use a code name.”
“Grand Poobah?”
He frowned at me. He was doing that a lot lately. If he wasn’t careful, his face was going to get stuck and I’d have to dump him for losing his perfect looks.
I chuckled. He frowned harder…probably because he didn’t hear the joke. “Sorry, I’m still adjusting to the mind-fuckery from the river, and now—” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. The bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom combined with the swirling colors and crackling fireworks in dizzying ways.
“Actually, you look human, so calling him your father is probably better. Anyone overhearing will assume you are trying to track down an incubus or similar. That won’t raise suspicion.”
“Fine. Look, there are no real notes on here regarding which places are okay, and which we should avoid. So without a guide, we should take the shortest path. That’ll get messed up somehow, because it always does, and then we’ll improvise. But sitting here, planning for the unknown, is ridiculous.”
“Do you have the map in your mind?”
I looked away and tried to recall it. The image came to the surface, crystal clear. I looked back to be sure, and smiled in elation. “I wonder if I’ll remember people’s names now, too.” It was something I was notoriously bad at.
“One can only hope.” He rolled up the parchment and stashed it in his backpack. “As you said, we will take the shortest path, yes?”
I suddenly realized what that would require. “We have to go through the insane circus.”
“Yes. Try not to kill anything with your power. Do it with your sword, or not at all. Rumors of you will be circulating already. That’ll bring challenges.”
“Do you think the boat captain will talk?”
“And say what? The Egg Man wasn’t seaworthy, but the Walrus seemed to do just fine?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “It wasn’t the sea that was the problem. Mostly. And I meant where he dropped us.”
“He wouldn’t talk to you, but…under threat, who is to say?” Darius slung the backpack over his shoulders and rose from his crouch. “Any demons following us are the least of our troubles. Ready?”
No, but I’d never be.
I rose, took out my sword, and followed him around the small tent, the cousin of the mammoth big top looming in the distance, moving away fr
om the river and deeper into the circus. More tents, all bright colors, dotted the way. Sawdust littered the ground, some fresh but most older and squishy, like what I’d felt on the beach. Regardless, it was going to get in my socks, and that was the worst.
A tall woman strolled out in front of us with a hairy chest highlighting her large breasts, six fingers on one hand, and a mustache that curled at the edges. It looked like the demon had mixed a few of the “freaks” from the classic freak shows.
She glanced our way before throwing her arms wide and creating claws with her hands. “Hah!” she yelled.
I gripped my sword’s hilt a little tighter, ready to jab her, but she swirled away, flaring her colorful skirt as she did so.
“I have never been so keyed up in my life.” I let out a shaky breath. “This is really fucking with me, man.”
“You will at least blend in.”
“Please don’t say I blend into this crowd. That is not good news for my self-esteem.”
We picked up the pace. A clown ran past, different than the one I’d seen before, wearing giant red shoes with claws sticking out the ends. Its face was mostly white, but some of the paint had rubbed off and black-spotted green skin shone through. Teeth that ended in points punctuated the clown’s silent scream.
A roar shook the ground, beastly and deep. A giant lion, nearly as tall as I was, padded after the scary clown. It shook its mighty mane. The edges glowed with the colors flaring all around it.
Bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom.
I pulled Darius to the side, because we didn’t need to tangle with something that had a scary clown running from it. As we moved, though, the lion’s nose twitched. Its giant head swung our way.
“Run!” I yelled.
Another roar shook the ground.
I didn’t wait for Darius to give his assent. I took off in the direction of the clown. If I got lucky, I could catch it and trip it. As long as Darius and I weren’t the last in line, we were golden.
Another roar rattled my bones. Darius was beside me a moment later.
It’s coming after us, he thought.
“No shit, Sherlock. What’d you think it was going to do, give us a cuddle?” I weaved in and out of the tents, hoping to lose it that way. In my peripheral vision, I saw things flying forward. A glance back and my blood ran cold.