Lilith Saintcrow - Fresh Circus

I swear to God, he looked disappointed. Perry eyed me for a long few moments, his fingers dangling at his sides, the dogs whining and a low rumble of Helletöng rising like steam from the ’breed plastered to the dusty ground. The Traders twitched in ways no human body should as his will passed over them, a tightening of corruption my blue eye could see all too well.

“Are there likely to be more deaths?” He cocked his head, buttery sunlight turning cold and cringing when it touched his pale hair and his linen-clad shoulders. The dogs growled, a rising note of unhappiness.

Four or five different things slid together in my head all at once. “Of course there are. Unless you get off your hellbreed ass and start helping me control the situation instead of trying to play it like a harmonica. It would be very upsetting to be second fiddle to the Ringmaster in my town, wouldn’t it?” Even temporarily.

There. Not bad for a toss of the dice. I stared right at the bridge of his hellbreed nose, the naked scar on my arm running with soft wet fire, and wondered if I was going to have to kill them all. Or at least, take as many of them with me as possible.

That’s the trick to staring down an unblinking hellbreed—just like scaring the shit out of a human being. Focus on the nose and your gaze grows piercing, a lot of their little glamours and fiddles don’t work, and any move they make is generally telegraphed. Peripheral vision is a lot better at picking up that sort of twitchy almost-movement; that’s what it’s for.

Stare or not, though, even I might have some trouble with the entire Cirque and Perry on my ass.

The first consideration was that Perry needed a reason to be on my side—and no reason to let the Cirque run wild to gain some leverage on me. The second consideration was that if he was here, he wasn’t watching the hostage.

The third was that I needed him if I was going to hold off the Cirque. I did not want to let them run riot through my city until someone else got a handle on them. Leon down south in Ridgefield or Anya over in the mountains had their own problems; this one was mine.

Last of all, I had to figure out what Perry knew and what side of the fence he was playing. As usual.

“You know what is causing this?” Did Perry sound, of all things, tentative?

Wonders never ceased.

“I haven’t just been sitting on my fucking thumbs, Perry.” I kept the gun steady, sharp hurtful gleams twinkling off the barrel. The sunlight was still so cold my shoulders were tight as bridge cables, and my head hurt. My eyes were dry and full of brambles. Come on. Can we just have one time without a huge fucking production?

No, of course we couldn’t. These were hellbreed, for Christ’s sake. Nothing was ever simple or easy. It was all a game, and you constantly had to stay a few jumps ahead.

Perry weighed me for a long moment. The dogs slunk back, smoking and bubbling. Their crystal eyes were tinted red now, veined through with cracks of magma. They vanished into the shadows, and the chill lessened a little. The smells of the Cirque didn’t break, but the spoiled-honey-and-flies stink lessened.

The ’breed and Traders still writhed and jerked around us, as if a bomb had hit and we were the only unwounded. The scar sawed away at the nerves in my arm, Perry’s attention moving slow and jelly-cold over me. I wished I’d thought to scoop up a fresh leather wristcuff to cover the goddamn thing.

“Then tell me, my dearest one.” His tone was a numb-razor kindness. “Tell me who is responsible for this. I will kill him, and we will all be happy.”

I almost laughed again, caught the sound before it could reach my throat.

Ha. Nice try. “No, Perry. I’m not telling you a goddamn thing. We’re playing this my way.” Because if you got your claws into this, the next thing I knew I’d be yanked into going to the Monde again every month. And I’m sure you have something special planned for me. Not this time. I lowered the gun, my arm creaking with the urge to shoot him in the head and start killing again.

It would be bad in the long term, but oh, the instant gratification was tempting.

Tension ticked tighter and tighter between us, a humming line. I kept staring at the bridge of his nose, breathing softly. My pulse was a steady river.

He finally hissed, a long steam-escaping sound of dissatisfaction. But my bluff held. “Very well. I warn you, though…”

Leather creaked as the gun slid back into its holster. I flipped the whip once, the flechettes jangling. “Save the threats, Pericles. I need to see the fortuneteller’s body—or whatever’s left of it. And you need to be keeping both baby blues on that goddamn hostage. If he dies, you’re the first hellbreed I’m killing.”

As threats went, it wasn’t a bad one. Especially considering I meant every word.

T he tent was hung with red velvet, cheap tin spangles, and a huge ugly stink. Black liquid was splashed on every surface, including the cracked slivers of a crystal ball on a small circular table draped with purple sateen. Fine gritty dust puffed every time the breeze plucked at the tent’s edges, and the slice of hot daylight from the pulled-aside front flap didn’t do much to dispel the gloom.

I had an unsettling notion that this hellbreed had snarled at me, on my first visit to the Cirque. But not enough of her was left to be sure.

I was still cold. Perry crowded behind me until I stepped away, not liking the faint touch of his breath on my hair. The ruby at my throat spat a single bloody spark, and silver in my hair shifted and buzzed, warning him off. “Why aren’t you watching the hostage?”

“Oh, I like it much better here with you.” His usual tone, bland and interested, with just the faintest sarcastic weight to the words.

“Go, Perry. Have them bring me a bottle of Barbancourt rum and some cornmeal.”

“You came unprepared?” Mock-surprise, now. He skipped nimbly aside as I turned, avoiding both the sword of daylight through the flap and a bubbling streak of decaying hellbreed tissue. Fine white dust curled up, cringed away from the shine of his shoes.

“I didn’t have time to stop at a botanica. You gonna stand here running your fucking mouth, or are you going to do what I tell you?”

“Where’s your little kitty, my dear? Home lapping a bowl of cream?” His eyes glowed bright blue, the threading of indigo in his whites pulsing in time to some heartbeat too slow to be human.

“Saul isn’t your concern, Perry.” I was too tired to put much fuck-you into it. “Your concern right now is keeping that hostage breathing long enough for me to put an end to this.”

“And afterward?”

Afterward you can go fuck yourself again, if it will reach. I folded my arms. “We’ll deal with after, after. Hurry up.”

“I think we should come to an agreement.”

“You’re about ten seconds away from me blowing another hole in your head. What you think doesn’t matter.”

His eyes glowed. A small flicker between his parted lips was his wet cherry-red tongue, gleaming in the dimness. “Not even if I’m the one keeping you alive? The performers here are restive, and the Ringmaster is recovering from a nasty bout of green smoke and cockroaches. Even Traders are so fragile.”

Even you, he probably meant.

I am not a Trader. I’m a hunter. Don’t forget that difference, Perry. “Five seconds.” I stared at the air over his head. “And counting.”

He sighed, spread his hands… and ducked out into the sunlight again, the shiver rippling through his linen suit as well as his skin as the sun, that great enemy of all darkness, touched him.