Bell pounded the back of the sword swallower just as he slid a fencing sword into his mouth. Misha coughed. A splatter of blood stained his sickly pallor.
“Oh God,” Maya exclaimed, reaching for him. But she paused, helpless. She was a health teacher, not a nurse or a doctor.
“He’s used to it by now, poor, unhappy man,” Bell said. “He had to learn how to do his acts the hard way, and I won’t let him take the easy route out. He is not permitted to die.”
Misha pulled the sword from his throat. His mouth seemed unnaturally red, especially in contrast to his sallow, waxy skin. He looked miserable as he met Maya’s gaze, but he shook his head against her concern when she made to check him again.
“Keep no sympathy in your heart for him,” Bell said. “His debt is not yet repaid. He well earned his punishment. Remember, Misha,” Bell murmured in his ear, “I could have given you worse things to swallow than swords.”
Misha wiped the blood from his lips and lowered his head until Bell passed him by. Then he took the smeared sword and brought it back to his mouth, sliding it in then back out again in two swift, smooth motions. Next to him was a rolling table with a number of sharp implements laid out, including large-gauge needles, nails, several hooks and a broad array of thin swords.
“You mean you made him figure out how to use these by trial and error?” Maya asked in horror.
“I told you, Maya. Save your sympathy,” Bell said.
“Jesus H. Christ, what did he do?” Maya said, not bothering to shield her accusation. Bell was as good as forcing the man to torture himself.
“It’s okay. The perforation has healed,” Misha said, putting a hand on her shoulder. His voice was raspy. He still looked sick, the downturn of his eyebrows imploring her, but she didn’t know for what.
If it was rescue he sought, she wasn’t his girl.
“What is it with everybody here?” Maya said loudly. “It is not fucking okay.”
“His deeds and his wish are between myself and Misha,” Bell said.
He knuckled Misha’s chin up to meet his eyes. Misha nodded, their secret passing between them. Bell patted his cheek with unbridled contempt.
“Back to work,” he told Misha.
He didn’t need to raise his voice for the command to sink in.
“You’re a cruel bastard,” Maya said as Bell led them away from Misha and into the ring, where two men were working on a pair of trapeze swings.
“If you say so,” Bell said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maya asked. “Everything you do…”
“Do not condemn me for what I haven’t done,” Bell said, abruptly taking Maya by the shoulders. “I am no crueler than random, no kinder than chance. My whim and will are as inevitable and unstoppable as the whim and will of the weather. You do not know my intentions. You do not know my purpose. You do not know me.”
“I know I didn’t deserve this,” Maya said. “How many others didn’t?”
“You don’t deserve what?” Bell asked. “Walking around bored in a leather outfit on a summer day? Do you even realize what I could have done with such a wish? What I still can do if it is my will to do so?”
He brought his hands closer to her neck, running his thumbs over the length of her collarbone until they met in the hollow of her throat, but he didn’t so much as press.
“It has been a long time since you have exercised that imagination rusty in your skull, but I know the same mind that invented tales of adventurous earthworms and shape-shifting princesses in your youth could conjure up more inventive tortures I could devise for you, if it were my will.”
Blood rushed into her cheeks and ears. She hadn’t thought about the stories she’d made up during elementary recesses in ages. How had he known about that?
“Even if you could have done worse, is that supposed to inspire admiration?” Maya asked. “I should take a bad situation and just thank God it wasn’t worse?”
Bell drew closer, but he kept some space between them as he pointed to the two men practicing. She didn’t remember seeing them perform, so she must have left the tent before their act. It was a shame, too. Now that she was watching them instead of arguing, they quickly captivated her with their precise, sensuous routine.
“I only cursed them into constant contact,” Bell murmured. “They aren’t perceived as freaks in the strictest sense, although they know better. But from their pain comes such beauty—beauty that even they recognize. And though they despise me, they revel in the abilities that I gave to them. There were far more intensive curses in my repertoire. I chose to save them for a worthier pair.
“Now,” he said, guiding her backstage once more, “you have also met some of my voluntaries, those who asked to be part of the circus. Or, more precisely, they wished it and can stay for as long as they choose under my proprietorship and protection. Carlo, Kitty, Troy, most of the demons. But there are others who wish their way into the circus for less noble reasons, such as these.”
He brought her to the large trailer cages. Sliding, solid metal doors would hide the animals within during travel, but right now the doors were open to reveal the bars, and behind them, the lion and tiger, who stared with wary, uncommon intelligence at Maya and Bell.
There had been people in the cages before and no animals. The people had to have become the animals themselves.
Maya flinched as the male lion rose from where he’d curled in the corner. He slouched heavily over to her. Bell kept her still. His palm exuded heat as he brought it down her arm—barely touching her. Then he took her hand and guided it between the bars.
The thing about big cats was that they always looked smaller than Maya expected until they got really close. Then she’d realize that most of the animal, at least five times as big as a petite woman like Maya, was pure muscle.
Maya released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding as the lion approached her hand, his giant maw just inches away. She knew there was a person under that lion pelt and that he wouldn’t hurt her. But the lion’s teeth were real and deadly, the paws large enough to break her neck and the claws large enough to tear a good piece out of her face in the process, if she were all the way in the cage and not just her hand.
The lion lowered his head to push against her hand, like a very giant cat asking for head scratches. Maya tentatively obliged. The hair was just as coarse as it looked, and yet when Maya stroked into the rough, she didn’t think she’d ever experienced anything as amazing as this.
“Are they in here all the time?” Maya asked. She flinched again when the lion let loose a series of low motorboat growls, but he bumped his head against her hand again, so she figured it was the big cat version of a purr.
“Except for performances,” Bell said. “Believe me, as with Misha’s punishment, this level of captivity was well earned. And like Misha, they know their place. They can only hope that the debt is repaid sooner rather than later.”
“I still think you’re a cruel bastard,” Maya said, but she was too entranced by being so close to the lion. “Animals weren’t made for this.”
“I would never treat one of these real animals this way,” Bell said.
“So you only reserve your cruelty for human beings. Nice.”
“Only human beings are crafty enough to deserve consequences…and try to avoid them,” Bell said. “If I told you Arcanium’s animals threatened my circus while they were still human, would you believe they earned their fate?”
“I’d think if what they did was illegal, they deserved justice. As in, the justice system,” Maya said.
“Is this not a prison?” Bell said. He grasped the bars of the tiger’s cage, one of his golden rings clanking against the metal. “Does humiliation and containment not accompany human prisons as well? You only call me cruel because I deal it myself at my discretion, and my motivations are a mystery to you.”
“Is that what you think you are? A judge?” Maya said.
“I am a fortun
e teller,” he replied. “And a man of business.”
Maya closed her eyes. Her only consolation was that he seemed to be just as evasive with everyone else.
* * * *
Once the golems really got started, running around the big top like giant ants to make sure everything was ready, Maya backed out of the way between the big cat cages. About thirty minutes to show, the oddities filled up the large backstage area wearing their performance costumes.
The dynamics from the morning continued into the evening. The demons mostly stayed near other demons, and the humans—voluntary and cursed—congregated with other humans. All of them avoided the Ringmaster when he entered, and curiously, they avoided the clowns as well, who remained as tight-lipped as in last night’s performance.
Kitty entered the tent last, working a brush through Joanne and Jane’s hair as she navigated around their strange, shuffling gait. When they stopped moving, Kitty’s fingers flew, twining their hair together in a complicated braid-like rope to complement their fused spines.
As soon as she’d twisted a rubber band in and tied the ribbon, she moved on to Valorie. Working with about a dozen pins she’d stored in her beard, Kitty braided Valorie’s wheat-blonde hair to halo and frame her face out of the way of her contortions.
Afterward, Maya watched Valorie stretch with unfettered envy. Who wouldn’t want to be able to wrap their legs around their own neck?
“Places, everyone,” the Ringmaster declared.
Maya had never seen a group of people silence themselves so fast and completely.
The clowns took fore, with Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha and their entourage waiting in the wings. The rest of the cast waited to the sides to avoid anyone seeing them when the curtain parted. Kitty continued to move from person to person, fleet-footed and silent after kicking off her sandals. She brushed Christina’s hair and glossed it with some volumizing mousse. She even smoothed some gel over Lars’ head and shaved him down to a clean finish. She wiped the rest of the gel off with a cloth while Seth snickered without a sound behind his hand.
After handling everyone else, she tapped Bell’s shoulder and nodded in Maya’s direction. Bell shook his head. Kitty’s beautifying services would not be needed tonight. So Maya probably wasn’t going to go out into the ring for some impromptu performance or as an unfortunate prop. No chances of anyone she knew seeing her and telling everyone and their dog that Maya DeLuca had lost her marbles and joined the circus.
After the clowns had finished their act and the Ringmaster had entered the ring, Bell beckoned her to the wings. Maya would have preferred to stay with the big cats, but one of the golems opened the lion’s cage and led him away to Christina and Carlo, who were lifted to the lion’s back. Carlo was able to climb on with some help from Troy, the Tattooed Man. Christina perched on the mane like a girl splayed on a rug.
Maya reluctantly left the cage area to join Bell.
“They won’t be able to see,” he whispered and guided her in front of him, pushing the curtain to the side so that she could peer out. She cautiously leaned forward.
Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail went out into the ring, the curtain closing behind them, but Maya kept her eyes on Lord Mikhail in particular, his back just as attractive as his front. She couldn’t help but ogle at the way his rear worked under his leather pants. Maya shifted under Bell’s grasp, but he didn’t let her slip from under his touch.
Bell’s hand on the bare skin of her shoulders was doing things to her that she didn’t want to think about, because it simply wasn’t okay for her to be feeling this way—especially with a demon kidnapper. The place where he touched her prickled, not unpleasantly.
She didn’t want it to turn her on, that or the caress of his breath against her ear and over her neck. It took all her willpower not to tilt her head and present her neck to him, a completely involuntary and unwanted response. What’s more, it seemed to come out of nowhere, pre-wish flirting notwithstanding. All of those raging hormones were supposed to have taken a back seat to fear and hatred, plain and simple.
“Don’t worry,” Bell murmured, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. “It’s not you. As succubus and incubus, Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail are very useful for adult-only entertainment. However, lest that concern you, they aren’t allowed to screw the cast.”
Bell seemed to know exactly what his purring of the word ‘screw’ did to her, but he didn’t do more than tease. She doubted her clenched teeth were the reason why.
“Even with our ‘no touching’ policy, they do manage to keep Arcanium pretty sexually charged for cast and audience alike, especially in the evening. You might just find yourself jerking your boyfriend off in public where all and sundry can see you.”
“Oh God, you saw that?” she asked.
Her face flushed again, but now the heat suffused the rest of her body. And the whole time she couldn’t stop watching Mikhail flex those amazing, gleaming muscles and display his assets—spiced with memory accents from last night in the RV, different muscles, different assets, different actions, different man. Her mind spun in a lustful haze.
“No one else saw,” he said. “I assure you, everyone else in the audience was more concerned about what was going on between their own legs, enthralled by their sex demon of choice or inspired into sordid deeds with their partners as well.”
“I’d bet five dollars you were looking for me,” Maya muttered.
A slight rustle. Then he produced a five-dollar bill before her eyes. Maya clutched the curtain as he slid it into her corset between her cleavage.
“Now you can look,” he said, “if you desire.” He’d said that word deliberately too, and she tried not to show him that it got to her.
She didn’t look. She was no voyeur. What consenting adults did with each other, even in public, was none of her business. Besides, Mikhail was tasty enough to watch all by himself.
“What is it, Valorie?” Bell asked. He didn’t sound annoyed, just slightly inconvenienced.
Maya tore her gaze away from Mikhail bench pressing three golems on a plank to catch Valorie whispering in Bell’s ear. Bell glanced briefly at Valorie’s lips then crooked a finger at Kitty to take his place with Maya.
Maya kept her eyes on Bell and Valorie as Valorie led them into the shadows, but not far enough to conceal Valorie pulling Bell to her by the waist of his trousers and kissing him. He kissed back as ferociously as she held him against her.
Valorie opened her eyes and looked directly at Maya.
Oh no, she didn’t just warn me off her man.
Maya hadn’t wished herself in, damn it. She would much rather be in her own apartment with a hot chocolate and a romcom than here trying to puzzle out the disquieting motivations of an evil jinni.
Maya rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the show. If Valorie wanted him, fine by her. In fact, Maya wished her the best distracting Bell away, especially when the incubus and succubus in the ring were really turning on the charm.
With Kitty watching the show over her shoulder, Maya found it much easier to concentrate on the demons in the ring and not the one that had been behind her.
Kitty also took the opportunity to hand her a small glass jar of some kind of cream and whispered for Maya to apply it to her injured wrists. They had scabbed over by now, although they were a little swollen and still stung when she touched them. They were the wounds of a captive. Maya would be happy to see them go.
The cream was silky and smelled like jasmine and peppermint. It hit her skin with the same bracing coolness of spearmint mouthwash, almost immediately soothing her injuries.
When Maya tried to return the jar to Kitty, Kitty whispered, “Keep it. Apply it in the morning and evening. It’s not a magic potion or anything, but it should speed the healing process and make them feel better in the meantime.”
Maya tucked the jar under her corset with the five-dollar bill. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to put things in this outfit.
She su
pposed it had been too much to hope that the jinni would leave her alone for the rest of the show and let Kitty stay. But eventually, Valorie had to go on with the rest of the oddities, and Bell returned, more tousled than before, his lips flushed and his neck marked from Valorie’s demonstrative affection. Kitty deferred to her boss.
Once Lord Mikhail and Lady Sasha stopped performing, the sexual tension decreased. Slightly. At least Maya could breathe again without the constriction of the corset, the brush of fabric against her nipples and Bell’s emanating heat and his hand driving her up the wall.
“Don’t you have an act?” Maya asked Bell in the midst of the oddity display in the ring. The only oddity who hadn’t joined them was Kitty, who had settled onto a pink, floral chaise longue with a generous glass of wine.
“Sometimes,” Bell replied. “Not tonight. Tonight I am your guide, mentor and master.”
“You wish,” Maya retorted.
“If only my will could exact my own wishes,” Bell said as Seth and Lars began their routine.
Beneath the two young men, Valorie, Christina and Carlo did their own slow routine under the spotlights. Their acrobatics were intended to enhance rather than distract from the aerial acts. It really was quite breathtaking, especially with the blue light and symphonic metal playing through the routine. This was the Cirque du Soleil influence Kitty had mentioned, and it was no less awesome in a small, out of the way, low-rent circus than it was on a well-produced stage with a large cast of capable gymnasts and dancers.
“Actually, it’s been decades since I’ve had a lovely assistant for my magician act,” Bell murmured, his lips teasing her ear again. “I think it would fulfill the conditions of the wish if you submitted to my will in such a way. All your deeds in the ring done in my service, reflective of my skills.”
“You’ve got to be joking,” Maya snapped.
Bell covered her mouth with his hand to remind her that they weren’t having their discussion in a vacuum—or an empty tent.
“You were a teacher,” Bell said. “You are accustomed to performing with a smile whether you want to or not. I’m sure you could plaster on a lovely one while I levitate you or make you disappear.”
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