Vagabond Circus Series

by Sarah Noffke

  “Yes, Master. Here I am. Is everything all right? Do you need me for something?” Sebastian said, snapping to attention, jerking his eyes to the ground.

  “Of course I need you. Why else would I come and find you?”

  “Right, Master. My apologies. What can I do for you?”

  “Follow me, Sebastian,” Knight said and pivoted at once and walked through the space between the trailers. Nestled behind that row of trailers sat a strip of forest. It was unmanaged since the city of Thousand Oaks had strict regulations regarding interfering with the wild agriculture. Knight marched through the thicket of trees, having to duck several times due to low-hanging branches or curtains of vines. Twice he almost tripped on thick roots camouflaged by clumps of leaves. On Knight’s second stumble Sebastian watched his master with a renewed interest. Yes, managing the forest was hard for even Sebastian, who was close to two feet shorter than Knight. However, Knight was used to his stature and also moved without error, no matter what. Sebastian’s master was not a clumsy man. Not ever.

  “Master, are you all right?” Sebastian said the third time a hard-to-see vine caught Knight up. They were deep into the thick trees now. The Vagabond Circus couldn’t be seen behind them.

  Knight whipped around and Sebastian darted his eyes away so he wouldn’t be caught looking at the man. “How dare you ask me a question of that sort. Of course I’m all right.”

  “It’s just that you—”

  “Do you want a chance at Zuma or not?” Knight said, cutting off the boy.

  Sebastian paused. Was Knight going to give him a gift? He had said that he was on his way to earning something. Sebastian thought that meant more money or more freedoms. More of a rein, like the opportunity to actually leave the circus at night and put his hands on people out late. Knight had always forbidden this but he was giving Sebastian more privileges since he showed him so much loyalty.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Knight said, his voice that unmistakable tone, like a record scratching. “I’ve ordered Gwendolyn to detain her out here. Zuma thinks she’s meeting with Finley. He told me she scheduled the meeting to figure out how to take me out. Can you believe she was so naive to not realize my son would turn her in?”

  “Yes, that’s very noble of Finley, Master,” Sebastian said. Too loyal, Sebastian thought. It was hard to believe the guy who had just saved Zuma from his touch a few days ago would turn the girl in. That didn’t sound in accordance with Finley’s past behavior. What was more likely was Knight was being set up.

  “Master, I don’t think this is a good idea,” Sebastian said and again Knight, who had continued the trek through the forest, stopped and turned, making the boy drop his eyes.

  “Are you telling me you don’t trust my judgment?” Knight said.

  “No, not at all. I don’t trust the people at Vagabond Circus, Master.”

  “What is it that you want to do? I’m offering you full access to Zuma. Touch her. Take her off my hands. Get her away from my son.”

  “I’ll do it. But I don’t think you should accompany me. What if it’s a trap, Master?” Sebastian said.

  Knight narrowed his eyes with satisfaction, but Sebastian didn’t see it since his gaze was averted. “And if it is a trap?”

  “Well, then I’ll take down the attacker. None of them can beat me. They can run but then at least we will know who you should punish.”

  From Sebastian’s peripheral he spied Knight nod. “Very well. You will walk to the end of this forest. There’s a clearing there. Cross it and you will find Zuma waiting for you. The trees are too dense in that spot so she’ll be trapped. And Gwendolyn is stationed close by so Zuma won’t be able to use her combat sense on you.”

  “Okay, I’ve got this,” Sebastian said, his eyes a little higher than usual when facing Knight. “I’ll go now.”

  “Very good.” And Knight turned and walked back the way they’d come a few paces.

  Sebastian hadn’t moved off yet. “Oh, and one more thing,” the boy said, feet apart, head held high.

  Knight turned and Sebastian was looking at him directly. “You’ve always punished me for not calling you Master in every address. Which means you aren’t my master.”

  The fake Knight stumbled back, his large feet catching on a root again. Sebastian lurched forward, hands out.

  Because the shape shifter was granted all the skills of the person he took on, Benjamin shot Knight’s cognitive torture at Sebastian and the boy dropped to a crouch, the intense pressure making him cradle his head. Seizing his opportunity, Benjamin pulled Knight’s oversized frame back up and ran for the clearing where they’d been headed. He had only one more opportunity to fix this but he’d have to move without error. He leapt over logs and knocked Knight’s wide shoulders into unseen twigs. Then to his horror he heard another set of footsteps behind him. He dared to look and realized that his focus on getting away had released Sebastian from the headache he’d hit him with. Benjamin considered giving him another one but the adrenaline racing through him made it impossible to focus enough to be successful. All his efforts were on getting away. Sebastian was now just behind him. He could feel the boy reaching out for him and in his large body he moved so much slower than the boy. Sebastian’s hand was almost on Benjamin when he made the impromptu decision and morphed instantly back into his ten-year-old figure. Suddenly he was sprinting at twice his previous speed.

  “What the hell?” Sebastian said behind him.

  Benjamin dared to look over his shoulder. Sebastian was still after him but the shock of watching his master’s form slide into Benjamin’s tiny body had slowed him considerably. Benjamin raced until he was on the other side of the clearing, hidden back inside a thicket of trees, and only then did he turn and see Sebastian halt.

  The boy laughed. “Nice try, Benjamin. And nice trick. Now that I know you’re a traitor you’re really dead. You’ll have to come out of there and when you do I’ll be waiting.”

  Benjamin looked up at the figure beside him and nodded. Her hair made it hard to really see her but he could make out her pale face nod back. “I’ve got this now, Benny,” Sunshine said. “You may want to look away.”

  “No, I want to watch,” the boy said.

  She nodded and then stepped out into the clearing. The empath was dressed all in black as usual, which made it hard to see her standing in the woods. “You won’t be waiting, Sebastian,” she called across the clearing. Sebastian was twenty yards away, closer to the other side of the opposite forest.

  “What are you doing here, freak?” he yelled.

  “I’m convicting and sentencing you,” she said and walked forward, her combat boots mashing down the long grass under her feet.

  Another laugh. “Of what?” Sebastian said.

  “Are you or are you not responsible for Dr. Dave Raydon’s death?” she said, still moving forward.

  “Oh, is that what this is about?” he said, his hands on his hips and his black hair hanging in his face. “Yeah, so what? I was following orders.”

  “And what about Jasmine Reynolds-Underwood?” Sunshine said, her long black skirt taking pieces of grass with it as she walked. She was now fifteen yards away.

  “I was bored,” Sebastian said with a sneer. “Look, I don’t really have the time for this. You and Benjamin should leave the circus now that I know you’re traitors. But even then I will hunt you down and kill you.”

  “Not if I kill you first,” Sunshine said in a playful tone.

  The boy’s laugh sounded cold in the clearing as it echoed with no joy. “What are you going to do? Set me on fire? I’m pretty certain I can stop, drop, and roll. And you’re too far away. I’ll be in that forest and gone in no time.”

  “I’m closing in on you,” Sunshine said, moving forward, now ten yards from him.

  “Well, how about we end this then?” Sebastian said. And he took off at the girl, hand outstretched and aimed at her bare arm.

  Sunshine stopped, raised her own hand, and
shot a neat bit of fire at the boy, but it missed. He laughed, continuing to close the distance. When he was almost ten feet from the girl he halted.

  “Looks like we get to have a showdown,” Sebastian said. “One ball of flame from you will burn me, but one touch from me will kill you. How about we count to three and take our best shots.”

  And he was right. The odds were in his favor, but they were also in the favor of the person who had planned for this disadvantage.

  “That sounds great, ’Bastian. Oh, and also notice your clothes are a bit stiff today. I took the liberty of doing your laundry. I used a solvent known as chlordane. It’s odorless and also highly flammable. Thank me for it while you burn in hell,” Sunshine said.

  Sebastian’s eyes widened. He lurched forward to close the distance but that only gave Sunshine a better shot. She aimed and hit him square in the chest with a large ball of fire. It knocked the boy back several feet, and what would have scorched him but disappeared, suddenly spread with vengeance. Fire ran over the surface of the boy, covering him like a suit. It licked up to his face where it paused as he screamed for mercy. He then threw himself to the dry earth but that only added kindling to the fire, which spread through the grass, smoking and growing hotter. Sunshine watched, feeling the pain and torture in the boy. She thought it was only fair to feel the emotions of the first person she’d ever killed. Then she looked up to the sky, closing her eyes against the bright fire in front of her. A tear slipped down her cheek, tasting of salt as it fell into her mouth. It was a welcome taste over the smoke and burning flesh.

  “I love you, Dave. And now you have the retribution you never would have asked for, but I needed to give you,” she said and then felt the warm hand slip into hers and squeeze. She didn’t look at the figure melting before her, only pulled her gaze down to the boy beside her. Sunshine slipped her hand from Benjamin’s and put her arm around his shoulder, turning him back toward Vagabond Circus.

  “Let’s get out of here, what do you say?”

  He nodded up at her, his lip pressed firmly between his teeth.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Knight’s fingers drummed on the desk he had set up in his semi. The place was quite cozy and didn’t resemble a truck at all. That’s what money and unlimited man hours did for a person. He swiveled his eyes to the antique clock on the far wall. Gwendolyn was late with his food by exactly thirteen minutes and twenty-six seconds. That was unacceptable. She would be punished severely for the incompetence. And still, it was so unlike her. She met expectations, or rather exceeded them, most of the time. Knight threw down the pen he’d just had in his other hand. He couldn’t focus knowing the girl had tarnished her almost perfect record. It made him livid enough to upturn the desk in front of him which once belonged to FDR.

  Knight slid back from the desk, his hands gripping it. He had pretty much made up his mind to overturn the piece of furniture, even though that would most likely leave it in an irreparable state. But just then something bright flew by the door at the back of the truck, the one he left partially ajar to encourage air flow. Knight stood, his eyes pinned on the open door. Again an orb of sorts flew past the open space, but it paused and hovered just in the doorway before zooming off.

  “What the hell?” Knight said, wondering who was daring to disturb his dinner schedule. They should all know better. Then the orb returned, flying straight into Knight’s chamber and pausing just inside the space. It was a bright ball of light. No discerning curves or details, it was like the sun, too bright to see properly.

  “What are you?” he said to the extraterrestrial object.

  In answer it zoomed out of the semi and out into the grounds. Knight bolted forward and ripped the door back at once. The orb of light hovered just in front of his truck and then flew to the right. Knight’s eyes followed it and then it disappeared between two rows of trailers. He squinted, his gaze blurred by the setting sun.

  “Damn fools and their tricks,” he said, thinking it was one of the crew members playing with their lame gifts. That’s why they were all crew members, because they didn’t have a useful skill for performing, like his son, Finley.

  Knight was just about to turn back to his desk when someone impossible happened out from between the rows of trailers. Not only was it impossible for this man to be walking around the grounds of Vagabond Circus, but he was strolling casually, whistling and twirling his top hat around one finger. Knight blinked at the figure draped in evening sunlight. It had to be one of Oliver’s illusions. He would make the boy pay. And then the figure of Dave Raydon knelt and picked up something from the ground. The dead ringmaster held up the shiny penny between his gloved fingers as if inspecting it. Then he pocketed the found money. Illusions couldn’t pick up objects in the physical realm. But Dave was dead. Knight knew that.

  His brother strolled through the grounds until he disappeared into the big top, a little ways off. Knight didn’t believe for a second that his dead brother was ambling around the grounds of his circus. And still he had to believe his eyes. And then two other figures stepped out from the same spot where Dave had originated. One with red hair and the other with a head full of black hair. The two looked at the semi where Knight stood, but they were looking straight into the bright setting sun. They squinted. Gwendolyn even put her hand over her eyes like a visor and then shook her head at Sebastian. The two, as though deciding Knight wasn’t watching them, darted across the grounds in the direction of the big top. Knight guessed they couldn’t see him standing there in the doorway because of the direction of the sun.

  They both checked over their shoulders before disappearing into the big top. Knight shook his head. He didn’t know what was going on but he was going to get to the bottom of this damn mystery and he was going to do it right then. He only wished Finley was there, but he’d sent his son on an “errand” to take care of some patrons who had disgraced the side of the big top with graffiti. Knight stepped down from the semi easily and stalked east toward the big top.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  From Titus’s vantage point, located behind Knight’s semi-truck, he knew they had been successful. The ringmaster had taken the bait and was now crossing the grounds, headed in the direction of the big top. It had been Titus who produced the ball of light. He’d always hated that he had such a lame skill, the ability to illuminate. He was in essence a walking flashlight. While some Dream Travelers could read minds or teleport, Titus was only really useful in a power outage. Dave didn’t think the creative director’s gift was lame at all and mentioned it on several occasions.

  “Don’t you see, old friend, that you have the ability to illuminate because that’s what you do in other people’s lives?” Dave had said to Titus multiple times. “You produce light in the physical world as your Dream Traveler gift, but your gift as a human is that you bring that light out of people.”

  Titus always thought Dave must be projecting himself onto him, because he didn’t think he brought out much in most people. That was what Titus had thought, but presently he was thinking that Dave was right. Titus had swelled with pride when he watched Benjamin do the perfect impersonation of Dave a few minutes prior. He had worked with the boy for hours, ensuring that the ten-year-old didn’t just look the part of the dead ringmaster, but also acted the part, using Dave’s true mannerisms and flashing Dave’s easy smile. And Oliver, who had trouble crafting real people to detail, was able to create two exact replicas of Gwendolyn and Sebastian. Titus had helped with this. The creative director held out his hand and made a sphere of light appear there and smiled at it. My job is to illuminate, and for now my job is done, he thought to himself.

  Everyone at Vagabond Circus had done their job that day, except for one. He would be the only employee in the big top when Knight entered it. And everyone was ordered to stay out of the big top no matter what. That had been Finley’s one request. “This war will end between father and son,” he had said during the final planning meeting. “I want no one there
to be used against me. I want no one hurt in this final battle.”

  Titus had thought that Finley sounded much like his uncle saying those words. Finley had always reminded Titus of Dave in a way, and now he knew why.

  Titus watched as Knight paused momentarily before entering the big top. Now Finley would have to do something that his uncle was never prepared to do. He’d have to risk his life by taking Knight’s. Two men were in the big top and only one would walk out.

  Chapter Seventy

  The big top was dark when Knight entered. He paused in the entrance, but not because his eyes had to adjust. He could see fine in the dark, just like everyone in his family. It was a gift they all shared, like the ability to curse. He paused to take in his surroundings, since he suspected he had just been led into a trick. Still, anyone foolish enough to trick him would only find themselves defeated, he thought.

  Nothing was out of place in the big top. The seats were set up. The performance equipment stowed away in the practice tent, and the curtain pulled as it always was. And Dave? Where is he? Knight had seen him enter the big top, but it was empty now. Knight’s ability to torture through cognition made it so he could feel the minds around him, pick up on their energies. However, he felt no presence in the big top.

  “Gwendolyn? Sebastian?” Knight said, his voice loud and clear.