Алекс Калер - The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

That’s when they started playing Outfreak the Freak.

It was Melody’s idea, probably because I’d just asked her why members of the tent crew were called Shifters.

It started by her daring Stephanie to turn into Mab, which made the girl crow with laughter and ask which incarnation ? Mel just smiled, said, “Present .”

Stephanie stood up, brushed herself off, and cleared her throat.

“Presenting,” she said, “the most feared faerie in history. The one, the only, Mab!” With that, her features melted and stretched, melding into a perfect likeness of Mab. If not for the fact that Stephanie was wearing shorts and a hoodie — something I doubt Mab would ever get caught dead wearing — she pulled it off spectacularly.

“Fail!” Melody yelled.

Mab/Stephanie glared at her.

“Mab’s eyes are more hunter green. I’d call yours mint.”

Stephanie kicked sand in Mel’s face and sat down, promptly shifting back into her normal pink-haired Goth self.

“Let me try,” said Heath, a heavily tattooed man with thick round glasses. He stood up and gave himself a shake as his blond hair turned black and wild, his features angling up into a vision of Mab that was frighteningly realistic. Minus two things.

“Boobs are way, way too big,” Roman said.

“Not big enough,” countered another guy.

Moments later, every Shifter around the fire was doing their best impersonation of Mab — some aiming for exactness, others just going wild. There were snake-headed medusae and Mabs with red skin and devil horns. Others had two heads or five breasts. It just got worse from there, as they deviated from impersonating Mab into creating the weirdest creatures they could think of. Soon, the campfire was surrounded by bleeding harpies and twelve-foot-tall stick men and — strangest of all — a round blob of human flesh with no eyes or appendages, just a giant mouth filled with broken-syringe teeth.

“That, my friend,” Melody laughed, “is why they’re called Shifters. Shapeshifters, if you want to be precise.”

“How the hell do they do that?” I asked, watching the blob slurp itself back into the form of a tiny girl with a green buzz cut.

“Lineage,” Kingston said. “You know all those stories about gods mating with mortals?” I nodded, thinking of Zeus and all his bastardized offspring. “Yeah, well, replace ‘gods’ with ‘faeries’ and that’s what you get.”

I watched as Heath — at least, I thought it was Heath — mutated into one giant blue breast.

“Not as refined as the stories, eh?” Melody laughed.

“Never is,” Kingston said.

Roman is the first guy I recognize in the throng, though it takes me a moment to connect the guy I’m looking at with the heavily pierced, blue-mohawked guy I’m used to. This new, changed Roman is wearing a three-piece suit that looks like it was in at least a dozen pieces before he resurrected it. Patches are fraying off the elbows and I can’t tell if it’s mostly brown or tweed or black pinstripe. He’s also at least seven feet tall, with thick black tattoos curling around his bare wrists and tunnel plugs in his ear that are big enough to pass a tennis ball through. His general face shape is still roughly the same, albeit pointier, a bit more elfish. But he still has the blue mohawk.

“Vivienne,” he says. His voice is much deeper than usual, rumbling in the depths of his chest. “Enjoying the show?”

“Yeah,” I say, looking around, trying to find my quarry. Everything here seems dusty and antiquated, from the hand-painted signs proclaiming the bearded lady (classic), bat boy, and serpent fingers, to the makeshift tents and pavilions set up for the shows. I don’t see Mab or the blond guy anywhere.

“Looking for something in particular?” he asks, the hint of a joke on his lips. “I hear the fire eater’s quite hot this time around.”

“Mab,” I say, ignoring the horrible pun. His face becomes serious in an instant.

Roman clears his throat. He doesn’t ask me why I want to know, doesn’t ask if I’m getting into trouble. We stare at each other for a moment and it’s clear he already knows something’s up, and he’s not interested in getting involved. Mab doesn’t come into the freak show; whatever’s going on is serious.

“She went that way,” he says, pointing to the side.

I glance around. The tents back here are chaotic, all jammed together with no real rhyme or reason. Small alleys appear between a few tents, leading off in more directions and more shows. Hiding somewhere behind them is Mab and the man, and my time to find them is running out fast.

“Any idea which one?”

He shakes his head. “Went down Alligator Alley. You’ll have to look.”

Across the circular pitch from Roman stands a tank as wide as I am tall, and twice my height. In its depths, waving slowly with a grin on her face, is Penelope. Her red hair floats around her in a halo, her pale skin looking even paler in the clear water. She’s wearing a bra made of sequined seashells, and from the navel down, her body is that of a fish, with opalescent blue scales and a beautiful fin as diaphanous as a betta's. She smiles at me, a tiny trail of bubbles escaping her lips, and I wave back, trying not to look as rushed as I feel. To the right of her giant aquarium is a space between a couple tents. A wooden sign strung above it reads Alligator Alley with a bitten-off chunk missing from the side. There are a few people walking in and out of the narrow space, heading for or returning from the other tents nestled in the back.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Be careful,” he says in return, not looking at me. I nod and head into the crowd.

The air back here is stifling. It smells of sawdust and horses, kerosene and sweat. I cram down the tight passage next to a couple others and squeeze my way forward. I can’t see Mab or the blond guy over the heads of everyone, and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they wouldn’t just be standing out in the open. They’re hiding.

I come to an opening in the tent on my left. I glance up. Tarantina the Tarantuless — araknaspiderphobes beware is written in black ink on the wooden sign. A rubber spider hangs off the edge. Deciding to start at the beginning, I duck inside.

The moment I enter the tent, I feel like I’ve stepped into the Amazon. Stunted trees arch under the tent’s canopy, and long strands of moss droop down like broken wings. All I can see is the winding path in front of me. The floor is dirt and the air is thick and moisture immediately starts dripping down my forehead. There isn’t much of a crowd in here, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why; every surface is covered in spiders. Big Brown fuzzy creatures the size of my thumbnail or larger than a plate roam freely over the tent. They dangle from webs in the ceiling, crawl over the moss. A few scurry across the path in front of me.

I shiver in spite of myself. I’ve never been afraid of spiders, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy the idea of a large one dropping down the back of my neck.

I creep through the undergrowth, careful not to step on any of the spiders making their oblivious way underfoot. The only sound in the tent is the hum of cicadas and the occasional disturbing crunching noise; I can’t hear the music from outside or the voices of the audience. I feel completely alone. I walk a few steps deeper and turn a corner. The trees close in, reaching out with their leg-like branches. Cobwebs stretch from floor to ceiling.

Something slides across my neck and I jump, my hand immediately swatting at it.

A woman stands behind me. Her hair is long and braided, her skin deep brown. She’s wearing leopard skin and leather. Her feet are bare. There’s a tarantula the size of my fist on her shoulder and another creeping through her hair. Tiny spiders crawl up and down her legs.