Carniepunk

by Rachel Caine

  But at the pinnacle, the riders in that particular car were doing other things.

  I could see Ceci, her black hair shining in the afternoon sunlight, her arms wrapped around a man’s form as the two of them sucked face. She didn’t seem to be flailing or thrashing, so I assumed he was kissing her and not chowing down on her tongue. Their car bobbed gently in the dusty breeze as overly cheerful music played on and on.

  My stomach clenched as I stared up at them. Ceci had fallen in love on a Ferris wheel, she’d said; now here she was, in a demon-run carnival, kissing a stranger like they were long-lost lovers. Unless my life had suddenly transformed into some warped romantic comedy, there was no way this could work out for the best.

  I shouted her name, but she was either too far away or too busy to answer. Desperate, I looked around until I spied the ride’s operator, a heavyset middle-aged man.

  “Get the top car down now,” I said, “and I’ll give you a hand job behind the Tilt-A-Whirl.”

  The man blushed and began to sweat. He also pressed a button, and that wasn’t a euphemism for something naughty. The wheel whirred and began to turn. Slowly, the cars made their way to the bottom of the ride, then circled back up. I waited, dread building, until Ceci’s car arrived at the ground level. I pushed the operator aside and unlatched the door.

  And I knew, even before Amaymon appeared, that I was far too late.

  Ceci was smiling deliriously, her head lolling against the chest of an incubus. I’m sure he appeared to be human to everyone else, but I saw him clearly—the ruby skin, the long black hair, the coal-red horns.

  Just as I also clearly saw the claim on her soul, red-tinged, black-edged. Ceci had been marked for Lust. She’d been damned.

  The incubus winked a neon blue eye at me. “Hey, sugar,” he said. “Come here often?”

  I had only one option: I could summon my sword and cut down the demon. Once he was dead, his claim would be invalid. Ceci would be free. It was a toss-up whether I’d be arrested by human authorities before or after I was attacked by the other demons in the carnival, but that didn’t matter. I had to save my friend.

  Before I could call my sword, I felt hot breath against the back of my neck.

  “Well, now,” Amaymon murmured in my ear. “Looks like you lose.”

  “So do you,” I blurted. “She’s marked for Lust, not Greed. You won’t get the claim.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he said with a laugh. “Come, Jezebel. We have business to discuss.”

  And there went my only chance of freeing Ceci quickly. Or maybe at all.

  Life had been much simpler when I was a self-centered succubus.

  As he led me away from the Ferris wheel, the ride operator called out, “Say, Mr. Pogo, sir? Me and the lady here, we were just about to go get acquainted.”

  “Sorry, Carl,” Amaymon said. “I saw her first.”

  —

  GIVEN THAT AMAYMON was a duke of Greed, I shouldn’t have been surprised that his motor home was a mansion on polished aluminum wheels. The living room boasted a leather sofa and ottoman opposite a desk and recliner that belonged in a CEO’s office. The kitchen included gleaming cabinets, a marble countertop with a vase full of flowers, a stainless steel sink, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, and a built-in coffeemaker. (Yes, I noticed the coffeemaker. I liked coffee.) A full bathroom gleamed with tile, mirrors, china, and glass. But the crown jewel, as far as I was concerned, was the massive bedroom, complete with a bed large enough to host an orgy and a home theater system to provide the soundtrack. Like I’d said to Daun, I might not be a succubus anymore, but I wasn’t dead.

  Yet.

  Amaymon shoved me to the center of the living room, and I stumbled to the ground. I spat out carpet fibers as the incubus led Ceci inside the mobile mansion. They started to walk toward the bedroom, but Amaymon stopped them.

  “You’re mistaken if you think I’ll let you ruin my sheets,” he chided. “Egyptian cotton, you know.”

  “Lord,” the incubus growled, “I marked her. It’s my right to consummate our relationship.”

  Amaymon didn’t bother replying with words. With a flick of his wrist, he released a bolt of power.

  For the record, charred incubus smells like chicken.

  “Shame,” Amaymon said, frowning at the mound of ashes that until a moment ago had been a demon. “Decent help is so hard to find these days. Well, at least now he won’t complain about me taking my percentage. Have a seat, Cecelia.”

  Ceci lowered herself onto the sofa and stared blankly ahead. She was Amaymon’s now, body and soul—at least, until he killed her and took her to Hell.

  “Well, now, Jezebel. Here we are.” He smiled at me. “Still on your knees? Some habits are hard to break, I suppose.”

  That’s right. Keep talking. Think I’m completely outclassed and out of options. Well, the outclassed part was very true, but I still had an option. “You said we had business to discuss, lord.”

  “Indeed.” He sat next to Ceci, putting a hand on her knee. “I have something you want. And you have something I want. Let’s make a deal.”

  “See something you like?” I asked, rising to my feet. I ran my hands up over my breasts, leaning forward to better show off the twins. “Want to do it on a pile of coins?” I jiggled closer to him, smiling and winking. “I know you don’t want to get your Egyptian cotton dirty.”

  “No, little whore,” he said with a grin. “I want your soul.”

  “Souls are a dime a dozen,” I said, doing a shimmy-bop and stepping closer to where he sat. “If you want to screw me over, let’s get physical first. There has to be something that turns you on. A golden shower, maybe?”

  “You’re not my type.”

  “Sweetie, I’m everyone’s type.” I danced in a slow circle, showing him my back as I reached for my flaky Hell power, hoping that it would work. All I needed was a smidge of magic, just enough to emphasize my assets and make my body as desirable as possible.

  Luck was on my side: I felt my power come to the surface, flushing my body and making me tingle. I smiled as I peeked at Amaymon over my shoulder. “If you take me from behind,” I purred, “you can pretend I’m anyone you want. Anything you want.”

  Just as demons (and former demons) of Lust were susceptible to the hypnotic gaze of the Greedy, demons of Greed could be seduced by a creature of Lust. At the very least, they could be distracted. Amaymon’s gaze was fixed on my ass.

  Perfect.

  I made sure to move my body slowly, enticingly, as I summoned my sword. Once my fingers closed around the hilt, I spun around and attacked.

  And barely pulled back before slicing into Ceci, who had thrown herself in front of Amaymon as a human shield.

  Shit!

  “That,” Amaymon hissed, “was a mistake.” He took a deep breath and straightened his lapels. “I could cut you down where you stand, little whore. But this will be so much more rewarding on a personal level. I don’t need you alive to claim your soul. Cecelia? Be a dear and kill Jezebel for me.”

  Ceci launched herself at me, fingers curled for maximum eye gouging. I sidestepped, whipping around as she sailed past me, into the kitchen. She turned as I leveled my sword at her chest.

  “Ceci,” I implored, “don’t do this.”

  “Oh, Jezebel,” Amaymon laughed. “She doesn’t have a choice.”

  Ceci charged.

  I jumped out of her path and swatted her skull with the flat of my blade, aiming for a concussion instead of a decapitation. Her head rocked back, but she didn’t go down. I shouted as I threw a side kick into her gut, connecting solidly enough to knock her back into the kitchen. She landed hard against a counter, and I winced as I heard the distinct snap of a rib. But the pain wouldn’t stop her, assuming she was able to feel pain at all in her possessed state. Nothing would stop her. She’d keep coming at me until I was dead—or until she was. I had to figure out how to take her down without making it permanent.

  Mental
note: Buy tranquilizer darts.

  As Ceci pulled herself up, I reached deep inside of myself and threw a blast of magic at her, hoping to knock her out. I probably would have, too, if she hadn’t ducked. The bolt slammed into the built-in coffeemaker, decimating it as well as a good chunk of the countertop.

  I really have no luck with coffeemakers.

  Before I could take aim again, Ceci grabbed the flower vase and threw the contents at my face. I dodged the flora and the water but walked headfirst into her backhand with the vase.

  Blinding pain.

  I screamed; I staggered.

  I sensed my oncoming death.

  I screamed again as I swung my sword in a wide arc—and connected.

  Another scream, this one not my own.

  Gritting my teeth, I opened my eyes. Through the haze of pain, I saw Ceci fall to the ground slowly, almost gracefully.

  Amaymon screamed again, high-pitched and tortured. I pivoted and saw him on his knees, clutching his head. Cutting down Ceci had severed his claim on her soul—brutally. He screeched, lost in the agony of psychic feedback.

  I took a moment to savor his torment. Then I did what he’d wanted all along: I gave him my Fury sword, blade first.

  The demon Amaymon died screaming.

  I watched as the tattered remains of a human soul, no longer bound by the demon, stretched up and out, hovering for a moment before it discorporated with a sound like a sigh. The empty body crashed to the floor.

  Untouched.

  No blood; no cuts. No nothing. Just a corpse on the expensive carpet. He could have been sleeping, if not for the lack of breathing.

  From behind me, a weak voice said: “Jez?”

  I turned to find Ceci sitting on the ground, clutching her side with one hand and her head with the other, looking at me with big, wounded eyes.

  “I told you the carnival was a bad idea,” I said.

  —

  CECI HAD THREE broken ribs and a mild concussion. After we got home from the hospital, she went straight to bed. I followed suit, but not before grabbing a bottle of Jägermeister. I retreated to my bedroom and put on awesome music. And then there was much drinking. Dancing, too, but mostly drinking.

  I was coasting along on a decent buzz, when I heard a throaty chuckle behind me.

  “Drinking alone, Jez? How sad.”

  Still dancing—well, swaying to the music—I turned to face Daunuan. He was magnificently naked. Looking at him made me feel overdressed in my skin.

  “Not alone,” I insisted. “I’ve got Tom Waits.”

  He wrapped his arms around my waist. “To Hell with him. You’ve got me.”

  I wanted to ask if he was vying for my soul again, but I was too drunk and too tired to care. So I leaned my head against his chest and for a moment I simply enjoyed being close to him.

  You’re feeling sad, he said in my mind. What’s wrong?

  Nothing, I thought at him. Killed me a demon today and saved my friend’s soul. Point, Jezebel.

  Then why are you sad?

  I’m not, I insisted. I’m all sorts of happy.

  And I was. I was very happy that I hadn’t killed Ceci when I’d attacked her with my sword. I had even half convinced myself that deep down, I had known that an Erinyes-blessed blade couldn’t harm a human—that all along, I had done it to sever Amaymon’s hold over her.

  Demons lie. But they never lie to themselves.

  Only humans do that.

  Daun let me have my lie.

  Then he let me have three orgasms. He didn’t even try to steal my soul. Just went to prove that demons really did have hearts.

  And Daunuan’s belonged to me.

  “Hell’s Menagerie”

  A Charlie Madigan Short Story

  Kelly Gay

  Why did I let her talk me into this? Why, why, why? “Your mother is going to go ape shit. Total ape shit. I’m so dead. And she won’t be swift about it, either. She’ll drag it out, enjoy it with that maniacal gleam she gets in her eyes. She’ll—”

  “Rex.” Emma turned, stopping Rex in his tracks. “Focus. Mom is in Elysia for the week. She’ll never know.” Her gaze went narrow and suspicious; funny how she could do that—go from big brown-eyed innocence to shrewd and calculating. “Unless you slip up and tell her.”

  “Yeah. Right. Not going to sign my own death warrant, kid.”

  But he probably already had.

  If Charlie found out he’d allowed her only child to track a kidnapper to hell of all places . . . Christ. He rubbed a hand down his sweaty face. He was in deep, deep shit. This fatherly role was way more complicated than he thought it’d be. Who knew that little piece of work walking in front of him could worm her way inside of him like some adorable little parasite and make his heart go all mushy and weak-willed at the first sign of a lip tremble or tears?

  Weren’t fathers supposed to be stern and solid as rocks? Unmovable as mountains? Sounded way better than being whipped by a twelve-year-old kid.

  Emma was just like her mother, too. Headstrong, brave, powerful. But she had a long way to go before holding her own like Charlie. Charlie was trained, had years of experience dealing with the off-world criminal element in Underground Atlanta, and she knew pain, death, and loss on an intimate level.

  Emma knew loss, too. Her father, Will, was gone for good, his spirit set free to go to the Afterlife while his physical body remained, a true home for Rex’s jinn spirit to take over, to become something more than a simple Revenant who possessed one body after another. Something permanent, in body and in Emma’s life.

  Rex would be damned if he’d ever let Emma experience the things her mother had gone through—what she might be going through even now as she scoured the heavenly world of Elysia to find her partner, Hank. Imagine Charlie coming home to learn he’d allowed Emma to traipse into hell, hell, to recover a bunch of kidnapped hellhound pups.

  Puppy-napped.

  Jesus.

  He hadn’t really let her ‘traipse’, though. Em’s journey was more of a stealthy escape through a bedroom window, unlocking Brimstone’s kennel, then breaking into the League of Mages headquarters and using the portal to Charbydon (aka hell). And he hadn’t exactly let her do that, now, had he?

  He’d been blameless right up until he caught up with her and her hellhound in the capital city of Telmath, where the portal had taken them. Where Emma had cried, completely heartbroken in his arms.

  And he was a world-class sucker.

  In his defense, what the hell was he supposed to do?

  The pregnant hellhound Charlie had found in the warehouse district a couple months ago should have been sent back to Charbydon and set free in the wild. But there were issues with her pregnancy, so it was decided she’d go after the pups were born. The pups arrived, the shelter breached, and Momma and her pups were taken.

  Easy pickin’s for someone looking for a few exotic animals . . .

  Emma had learned that two other kidnappings had occurred in the area, all of exotic animals, all supposedly taken by some traveling circus/menagerie. The things kids learned at school. Little eavesdroppers. In a school full of arcanely gifted children, there was no doubt in Rex’s mind that if they put their minds and talents to it, they’d find the culprits and recover the animals.

  Emma, however, had taken it personal. The rescued hellhound living in their home, Brimstone, meant more to her than anything. The fact that she could communicate with the beast added another layer of intimacy and loyalty when it came to the breed.

  “We look around,” he reminded her, sticking close in the crowded city street. “If we find them, we let the authorities know.”

  She didn’t answer. Just kept walking down the dark avenue, in the direction of the three big-top tents they’d spied from Telmath Station’s high vantage point.

  Charbydon was Rex’s place of birth, where he’d fought as a jinn warrior long ago in the war with the nobles. But that was before he died and spent the next few thousand ye
ars as a spirit, before he met Emma’s father and made a deal that would change both their lives.

  The familiar scents of warm tar and stone were heavy in the hot Telmath air. The old city was tucked inside a gigantic cavern in the mountainside. Its buildings were made of thick timber beams and beautifully carved gray stones, and they clung to jagged out-croppings along the cavern walls or were packed together on every available surface where the cavern floor didn’t drop off into nothingness below. Bridges linked one area to another, and high above in the cavern ceiling, veins of raw typanum ran through the rock, casting its violet glow onto the gray city below.

  This world was the basis for humanity’s notion of hell. The beings here—ghouls, goblins, jinn, darkling fae, and nobles—had been the inspiration behind legends of monsters, demons, dark gods, and fallen angels. Heaven and hell had come out of the closet over a decade ago, and now all three worlds—heaven, hell, and Earth—existed in what was usually a very lawful coexistence.

  Usually.

  Rex glanced up to the sight far across the cavern where an enormous spear of rock jutted up from the cavern floor. Its height was dizzying from where he stood. He’d once stood upon that rock, a place called the City of Two Houses, where the houses of Abaddon and Astarot ruled this world from their dark obsidian temples and palaces.

  A cold shiver snaked up his spine as they moved deeper and deeper into the heart of Telmath. He could feel Emma’s excitement and awe, but, wisely, she kept silent; she was already in enough trouble and did not need to be enjoying this little excursion.

  No longer able to see the tents, they followed the music, a slow, beckoning melody that flowed down the streets and alleys like a cool refreshing welcome—tempting the mind and heart. Come. Come to the carnival. It wound through the congested avenue, a marketplace where open fires burned in barrels, goblins hawked their wares, cloaked ghouls kept to the shadows, and darkling fae moved their lithe gray bodies in and out of the throng. Rex spotted a few humans and mages, a noble or two, and a small group of jinn warriors standing around a fire.