Lilith Saintcrow - Flesh Circus

“Oh, Christ,” I said. “Drop the other shoe. And get me some more ammo. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Y ou could find just about anything a serious practitioner needed at Galina’s, and if your credit was good you could get a whole lot more. A neutral supply of necessities for all concerned is the least of the services a Sanctuary provides to a city’s nightside inhabitants.

She poured us tea up in her kitchen. The night pressed against the bay window over the sink, the green bank of herbs in a cast-iron shelving unit stirring slightly.

Sancs like growing things. They are gentle souls, really. It’s a shame so few people pass their entrance exams.

Galina set the tray of silverjacket ammo down on the butcher-block table. “What do you know about the last time the Cirque was here?”

Saul blew across his tea to cool it. He was looking everywhere except at me.

I stared at her for a few seconds, the chill down my back growing more pronounced. “It was the hunter before Mikhail. I know he told them not to come back until he wasn’t the hunter here either. Bad blood between him and the last Ringmaster. Or is that the same one?”

“It’s the same one. He’s been controlling the Cirque for a few generations, which means he’s nasty and smart.” Her fingers were steady on the teapot; she poured and pushed the ammo tray toward me. It was really strange to see her so pale. Not much disturbs Galina’s serenity. “With that goddamn cane of his. The last time…”

I waited while she set the teapot down, the walls echoing slightly with her distress. Sancs don’t go outside much; it’s the price they pay for being almost godlike inside their nice thick defenses. Being inside a Sanctuary’s space when they lose their cool is an uncomfortable experience at best.

Saul slurped loudly. The scar ran with prickles, like icy water on burning skin. I began checking the ammo automatically, sliding yet more extra cartridges into the loops sewn inside my coat. I could probably do this in my sleep, I’ve done it so many times.

And hell, while I was here for the second time today I might as well load up.

“There was some trouble,” Galina finally said, lowering herself down to sit on a stool opposite me. “The hunter before Mikhail was Emerson Sloane; he had a sort-of apprentice. Everything went sideways.”

Sort-of apprentice? That doesn’t happen. But there are wannabes in this business, just the same as any other. Fucking amateurs trying to get themselves killed, since they’re unfit for the job one way or another, or they’d be trained.

Silence stretched between us. I finally broke it. “Mikhail never told me about that.”

“He wasn’t an actual apprentice.” The kitchen, with its mellow shining counters and wood-faced cabinets, wavered slightly and solidified around her. “He just kept following Sloane around until Sloane gave up and began training him.”

That’s how it usually starts. My own apprenticeship hadn’t begun that way, but… Mikhail had been an exception all over.

And so, I suppose, was I. And if I was lucky, Gilberto would have vanished off my front step by the time I got home.

Galina sighed. “He got into trouble. There were some problems.”

“What type of problems?”

Her brow furrowed. “I… didn’t hear much. Sloane never opened up about it. I do know the kid ended up dead, after something terrible.”

There’s certainly no shortage of terrible things on the nightside. “And no word on what ‘something terrible’ entailed? Did it have to do with the Cirque, or—”

“I just don’t know, Jill.” She picked up her own cup, took a small sip. Her shoulders were sharp points under the robes. Some of the shaking had eased out of her. The walls had stopped quivering with etheric distress. “The Ringmaster seemed to think you had a hand in this attack, and he was… excited when he showed up. Perry was right behind him.”

Goddammit. I’ll just bet he was, with his little fingers in the pie as usual. I couldn’t help myself—a sigh to match hers came out hard on the end of the sentence. The smell of incense, dust, and sleepy power in her shop mixed uneasily with the aroma of spaghetti sauce and the fading tang of ’breed—she’d probably been at dinner when they dropped by. “What can you tell me about this trouble?”

The line between her eyebrows got deeper. “Not much that I can recall. It had to do with the apprentice and a woman over near Greenlea, I think, back when that part of town wasn’t very nice. Had to be, oh, around 1926 or so. Before the barrio moved, before the big outbreak, and before all that new money moved in and turned it into a shopping district. The kid…” She frowned. “There was something about him. I can’t remember. I’ll dig through my diaries, see if I can suss it out.”

Hm. “It’s not like you to have a bad memory.”

She gave me an exquisitely sarcastic look. “When you’ve put in almost a century of tending a Sanctuary, Jill, then we’ll talk. Mikhail and Sloane both liked things close to the vest, too. Most of the time I didn’t have a clue what either of them were up to.”

And I was no different when a case was heating up. It was my turn to shrug as I finished stowing the ammo. “Mischa was a private person, all right. I didn’t hear much about the former hunter either. Except that Sloane wasn’t of our lineage, he was part of Ben Cross’s crowd.”

“Yes. Sloane died after the outbreak in 1929.” She stared into her tea mug like it held the secrets of the universe. “We were in freefall for years. That was a bad time for any hunter.”

“Yeah.” The second-biggest demonic outbreak of the past century, 1929 was a bad year for hunters all over the United States, and it got exponentially worse in Europe ten years later. So much of what was unleashed during the two decades after ’29 is still out running around—it’s like the Middle Ages all over again, only this time we have more firepower to put things down.

Still, the firepower’s no good without people trained to use it. And quality apprentices are few and far between.

I thought again of Gilberto and hoped he was gone by the time I got home. Which might not be soon. This had all the makings of a complex situation, which meant a lot of blood and screaming. Not to mention gunfire and ugliness.

“Oh.” A sudden, abrupt movement. Galina finished trolling through her memory and blinked. “Gregory. That was the kid’s name. Something Gregory. I’ll look through my diaries.”

“I’d appreciate it.” Great. And I really have to get over to Greenlea, now that you mention it. I’ve got business there too. “Hey, has anyone been in to buy voodoo stuff lately? Anyone making a big serious purchase?”

“No. I don’t do much voodoo or Santeria here. That’s more Mama Zamba on the edge of the barrio, or Melendez. I sometimes send people to either of them.” A curious look crossed her round, pretty face. “I wonder…”

I hate going to either of them. Jesus. “Well, give ol’ Zamba a call as soon as I leave. Let her know I’ve got a few questions. It’s about time I went and scared her again.” I fished out a fifty-dollar bill. “Here’s all I’ve got on me for this load of ammo; I’ll take care of the rest when I get my municipal check. Okay?”

“You can put it on account, you know.” But instead of saying it with a grin, Galina looked troubled. “Jill, are you sure you want to go out to the Cirque?”

“I’ll go where I have to.” You should know that. “It’s just a bunch of hellbreed playing games. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”