Lilith Saintcrow - Fresh Circus

But he and Eva had been hanging out an awful lot lately. She’s smart, tough, and a capable exorcist, even if she’d never make a hunter. Both Benito and Wallace have a little-sister thing going for her, and she handles it as gracefully as any woman in a predominantly male field does.

That is, with a smart mouth and twice the moxie of any mere man.

I swallowed the smile struggling to rise to my face. “Mmmh. Serves him right, taking on an exorcism-plus like that without calling me.” I put the file under my arm and stepped up to the first door, my back itching a little because it was to the hallway. Only one entrance and one exit to any exorcist’s lair.

Getting trapped is a risk we’ll take. Letting a Possessor or a victim escape without being cleaned out isn’t.

“Eh, well. None of us want to call you without reason.” He shrugged when I glanced at him. “I know, I know. Better to call you without need than to need you and not call you. Believe me, I’m down with that.”

I eased the bolt on the porthole free, slid the small reinforced square aside. Even this aperture was barred with cold iron, blue light running under its pitted, rusting surface. Reinforcing the protections on a space like this was an every-day, every-other-day job at most. Some exorcists do it twice a day, even.

Considering the alternative, I don’t blame them.

Emilio Ricardo crouched in the center of the circle scored in the concrete floor. He rocked back and forth, subvocalizing, and now that the peephole was open I could hear it, a tuneless buzzing plucking at the air. He was hugging himself, and the rags of his shirt fluttered. The restraints lay in a corner, a jumble of leather straps.

Interesting. “Did you untie him?”

“Yeah. Figured he was going to be in there awhile. I’ll trank him through the door if we need to take him out for a walk.” Avery shivered. “I got a bad feeling about this, Kiss.”

Don’t call me that. “Me too.” I shut my dumb right eye and peered through, concentrating.

There was only a slight, fading quiver of the unnatural around Ricardo. He was just keening, probably in psychological shock. Either that, or…

“Huh.” I looked closer, my smart eye dry and buzzing.

“I hate it when you say that,” Avery muttered.

Lingering cheesecloth veils hung around him, pulsing every time he took a breath. It looked like he was fighting free of the contamination—though contamination isn’t the right word when it comes to voodoo or any of her cousins. He was definitely struggling with the mental and emotional damage done by having something inhuman use your body as a hotel room—or getting that something violently evicted.

It didn’t look like the regular event of a loa or orisha “riding a horse.” The bargains that priests and priestesses make with those spirits are well-defined on both sides, and initiation into the secrets of any voodoo-esque branch carries a protection against unwanted possession as well as methods of doing it safely.

That is, if any possession can be called “safe.”

They are jealous of their followers, those spirits. I learned as much doing a residency, working the voodoo beat in New Orleans. Now that had been an education. Just goes to show there’s always something more you can learn, even as a hunter.

I slid the porthole closed, locked it. “Has he eaten anything?”

Avery shook his sleek dark head. “Nothing yet. I slide the food in, he doesn’t touch it.”

I don’t like this. I restrained the urge to flip through the file again. “Okay. I’m going to ask some questions. Hopefully I—” My pager buzzed, I broke off and dug for it. “Jesus. Never rains but it pours.”

“You say that a lot. I’ll just keep feeding him, then.”

“Be careful. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on here, and until I am I don’t want him going anywhere. Okay?” I checked the pager. Galina, again. Which meant I had to get over there—it wasn’t like her to buzz right after I’d visited her unless something was going on. Usually she’ll just wait for me to drop by every couple of weeks, figuring I have other irons in the fire.

“Okay. Say hi to Saul for me, will you?”

“I will.” I pocketed my pager, took another long look at the closed door holding a mystery behind it, shook my head, and turned on my heel. “Say hi to Eva for us.”

He was blushing. He should’ve known I wouldn’t leave without twitting him. “Go fuck yourself, Kismet.”

I laughed and was on my way, pushing up the stairs lightly with each foot. Outside the jail, the Pontiac was parked in a fire lane, Saul leaning against the front left quarter-panel and smoking. The streetlamp shine of just-past-dark was kind, and I stopped on the steps for a moment, just taking a good look at him.

Tall, dark man, silver in his short black hair, jeans and combat boots and a black T-shirt. Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, and almost too delicious to be real. Weres are generally striking if not beautiful. They just look more finished than regular humans.

He was studying the street, presenting me with a three-quarter profile hard-edged as a statue. There were dark circles under his eyes, I noticed, and his mouth was drawn tight. And his shoulders were hunched in a way I’d never seen before.

He looked tired. Well, his mom just died. Leave it alone, Jill. Be supportive.

My pager buzzed again, and I fished it out.

Galina, again. A chill touched my nape. “Fuckity.”

That got Saul’s attention. He ditched his cigarette, a long, thin stream of smoke following its arc into the gutter. “What’s up?”

“Galina’s buzzing. Twice. I should get over there. Avery says hi, by the way. I think he and Eva are dating.” I waited for him to give me a quick smile, waited for his eyebrow to quirk.

Instead, his mouth turned even thinner. “Huh.”

He really did look tired. My fingers tightened on the manila folder, making it creak and crackle slightly. “I can drop you off at home.”

That earned me a look sharp enough to break a window. “You don’t want me along?”

What? “Of course I do. You just look a little under the weather, that’s all.” You look tired, and I don’t blame you.

He didn’t scowl, but it was close. “I’m fine. ” He slid along the side of the car, opened his door, and dropped in as my pager sounded again.

Goddammit. I stalked around the front, popped the driver’s door, and got in, tossing the file in the backseat. I’d go over it after we found out what was going down at Galina’s. “Saul—”

“I’m fine.” He lit another Charvil. “If that’s Galina we’d better hurry.”

“You’re actually telling me to drive fast?”

He grabbed for the seat belt as I twisted the key. The Pontiac purred into life. “Christ, when do you not drive fast, kitten?”

When indeed. I dropped the Pontiac into gear. My pager buzzed again, and I floored it while Saul was still trying to get his seat belt on.

G alina’s shop windows shone with featureless yellow light behind paper-thin blinds. The telephone poles marching alongside the road in this part of town were festooned with paper. As I cut the engine, looking at the one right next to the car, I saw a huge painted poster stapled over the weathered drift of concert announcements and nudie-bar placards.

Come To The Circus! Art Deco flowers festooned the edges, and in the middle was a grinning clown’s face, deep lines in its paint, leering at the street. A suggestion of fangs touched the greased lower lip, and the clown’s eyebrows came up to high peaks. A dusting of corruption lay over the paper, visible only to my blue eye.