Lilith Saintcrow: Fresh Circus

I think that’s referred to as irony.

He kept quiet, watching me. The sun was going down, dusk dyeing the west in bright pink and orange scarves. It was almost time to get ready for the night. Which would mean racking in more ammo and dropping by Galina’s, since she had another load of blessed silver for me. Before that, I had to do some quiet digging, starting with the file on Avery’s victim from the last night—

“You know why I’m here, bruja. ” His eyes were fixed on my face. “I owe you a beer. And we got business.”

Yes, I do know why you’re here. You still have to say it. “What kind of business? I’m not involved with petty gang warfare.” No matter how useful you guys were last time I had big trouble in town. My heart squeezed down on itself, thinking of a grave and a coffin, and a good cop laid to rest.

My fault. If I had known…

But you never do. I brought myself back to the present with a conscious effort.

The boy on my front step shrugged. “I ain’t here for Ramon. We got other business.”

“Like what, Gilberto?” Go away while you still can.

“ Bruja business. With what you do.”

I held his gaze for a long fifteen seconds, feeling Saul appear behind me, a silent presence. My nostrils flared. It was there, too, the flat odorless reek of desperation with the burnt-sugar edge of wanting.

He didn’t quite break, but he did pale the slightest bit and step back, as if my mismatched eyes had somehow changed. I knew they hadn’t—there was none of the dry burning that would tell me my blue eye was doing funny things. But even the bravest tend to get a little weirded out when I stare at the bridge of the nose. The gaze grows piercing when you do that, especially if you just soft-focus, and you begin to look like you’re staring through someone’s head, riffling through their most intimate memories.

It’s a tough look to pull off while covered in dry sweat, rucked-up in a T-shirt and leather pants, and frustrated enough to chew nails. I still managed.

“I know what you do.” Gilberto dropped his hands. They dangled loosely, reminding me of the strangler-fingered Trader. “I want to do it, too.”

I didn’t have to put any more bitterness into my laugh. It was already bitter enough. “Go home, poquito. Leave the night alone and don’t darken my door again.” I swept said door to and closed it in his face.

No sound from the other side. None that you could hear with human ears, that is. I could still hear his heartbeat, pounding a little harder and faster now. Accelerated breathing, too.

I’ll bet that didn’t go the way you thought it would. I half-turned, and Saul stood close behind me, his hair mussed and high color blooming in his cheeks, one dark eyebrow elegantly lifted.

I shrugged. “Hopefully he’ll go away. I’m going to hit the shower.”

“What if he rings the bell again?”

“Ignore him.” I swung past him, already planning out the rest of the night. “Want a snack before we head out again?”

His broad shoulders dropped. “I’ll make you eggs.” He even managed to make that sound tentative. His hand twitched again, like he wanted to touch me, but he refrained.

Why?

You’ve got other problems, Jill. Just let him be. Be supportive, for once. “Good deal. Thanks, sweetie.” I paced away, a little faster than I should have, trying not to feel like I was retreating.

Now that was a losing battle.

A very’s desk always looked about to disappear under a mound of paper and ranks of liquor bottles. He’d stuck slim candles into bottle mouths, some burned down and others pristine, though I never saw a burning one. If he ever lit them up, it was probably when he was alone.

Cops aren’t supposed to drink on duty, but exorcists get a little bit of leeway. However, Ave didn’t immediately reach for the mini-fridge under his desk to get me a beer, and that was odd.

The tiled passageway behind me resounded with faint echoes from the downtown jail above. Here, at the very bottom, the long corridor terminated in Ave’s office and three rooms, each barred with cold iron. Each with a circle carved into the concrete floor to hold victims hosting a Possessor—or those who had been cleaned out but had to be protected from the demon coming back to crawl right in and set up housekeeping.

He handed over the file. “This is seriously weird.”

When isn’t it? I rolled my shoulders back in their sockets, my coat creaking a little. “What’s weird? Where’s our boy?”

“He’s the winner in Room One. Didn’t flinch at the circle or anything. Didn’t even know he was awake until I peeked in the porthole about an hour ago, when I finally got the file all together. There’s some headshots in there too. He has a record.”

I flipped it open and took a look. A couple of drug arrests, one breaking and entering dismissed with time served, and nothing for the last three years. Emilio Ricardo, thirty-six, brown and brown, employed halfway across town at a Mexican restaurant. Avery had even, bless his thoroughgoing little heart, pulled his recent renewal of a food-handler’s card. “Huh.”

“Yeah. The address on his food permit isn’t the place on Silverado where I found him.” Avery scratched at his forehead under a flop of brown hair. “It just tingled too funny. I got called in by a patrol car—they’d gone in for a domestic disturbance in the same apartment building and ended up hearing this guy screaming. Couldn’t break the door down, and one of them—Jughead Vanner, you know, blond kid, looks like an advertisement for Clairol—radioed me in. He said it made him feel hinky.”

That’s odd. “Poor Jughead. You know he came across a Trader a couple months ago?”

Ave’s sleepy smile bloomed. “He told me. Not in so many words, but… he wanted nothing to do with anything weird. I had to jiggle the door to get it open, and the vic tried to cold-cock me when I stepped in. I returned the favor, we tussled, I knocked him out.”

“Where was he when you came in? Right next to the door?”

“Guess so. Why?”

“No reason.” The straight razor was still in my pocket. For some reason, it bothered me. “So he’s been quiet?”

“As a mouse.” Avery’s eyebrows were struggling not to rise. “Something wrong, Jill?”

“Not yet.” But this is strange. “I’ll peek in on him, then I’ve got a couple other things to do. Can you hold him for a bit?”

He made an expansive motion, rolling his eyes. “All things should be so easy. It’s been quiet on the exorcism front.”

I didn’t tell him that with the Cirque in town, exorcisms would probably bottom out for a while. He didn’t need that kind of uneasiness weighing him down. “Yeah. I haven’t pulled something out of someone for at least two weeks, before this.”

“No rest for the wicked.” He indicated the first door. “Wanna take a look? Eva and I are going out for beers after I get off-shift. In about twenty minutes.”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with her. Speaking of Eva, how’s Benito? And Wallace? Is Benny’s leg okay?”

“Oh, yeah, it itches like hell under that cast but he’s all right. Says he feels more stupid than anything else.” Avery pointedly didn’t mention Eva again, and—was he blushing?

I stared at him, my jaw threatening to drop. Ave’s got a sleepy smile and big brown eyes, both of which draw women like honey. They don’t stay—girls don’t like it when their man spends his nights somewhere else, even if it’s with possessed people. And Avery never makes much of an effort to keep them, either.