Three Slices (12 page)

I take the hand she offers. “What fool would walk when he can let someone else do all the hard work?”

With a sudden yank, she helps me swing up onto the beast’s back, and unlike her, my weight is noticed. The horse’s muscles bunch in annoyance, and she turns her regal head and glares at me, showing fangs.

“You’ll have to share her, mate,” I say, and Merissa laughs.

“She’ll have to share me rather a lot. I need two of them, matched, for my act, you know.”

Her body ripples against mine, and she says, “Hup, Kali!” and then we’re running like hell through the forest, dodging trees as the bludmare’s hooves dig divots in the leaf mould. I’ve never ridden like this before, but I have a good enough idea that the best way to get through such a situation involves holding on rather tightly to the ravishing if peculiar creature in front of me and not making a fool of myself. The beast has a certain rhythm that I’m quick to find, and my thighs grip her ribs and the lady’s hips as my hands join around Merissa’s waist. She doesn’t seem to mind and lies lower over the mare’s neck, her doll hands tangled in billowing white mane. When Merissa let out a great, dancing laugh, her elation travels into my veins and settles there with what feels like significant permanence.

In this moment, I am smitten and I am smote. There is no difference.

Her mostly proper updo falls mostly down, and I will know the scent of her hair forever, a mix of violets and smoke and rich, black soil. Keeping my eyes open becomes an exercise in pain as her hair whips me to tears, so I tuck my face against her shoulder and trust her to steer our mighty steed to whatever end she has planned. And why not? The thread of my former comfortable if stunted life was severed as soon as Elise died at my feet. When a man has nowhere to go, he might as well go anywhere. And if that journey can begin wrapped around the most beautiful, intriguing spitfire of a woman he’s ever met, all the better.

I smell the caravan before I see or hear it. There’s no mistaking the scent of last night’s crowd and its sugary, salted leavings. Bits of popcorn and candy floss and sticky, fallen butterscotch apples litter the ground before a long train of wagons that’s noticeably shabbier than my last home.

Merissa sits up straight and murmurs silly things to the horse, and the mare’s ears flick back as she slows to a lumbering walk. Over her pretty head, I register a well-kept tightrope, brightly colored but oft-patched tents, and striped poles strung with lanterns. To my proprietary eye, it’s a serviceable if untidy caravan, although at this hour of the morning, its carnivalleros would do better to be outside, practicing and performing the routines and prop maintenance that would insure many more years of good spirits.

In short, it’s a place that could use my particular brand of loving cruelty, and I immediately wish to possess it, to which end I straighten my waistcoat and collar, retie my cravat, and smooth back my long hair into a tidier tail.

“Who’s the master of this house, then?” I ask.

Merissa shakes her head and snorts. “Old duffer named Bartholomew Bailey. Human, fat as a maggot. Too paranoid to come out of his wagon these days after he was attacked by the wolf boy. Does business over a loudspeaker and through a tiny window, like a postal clerk. It’s all a bit embarrassing, you know. But of course, there are creatures that flourish in an absence of leadership, and most of ’em have teeth.” She turns her head with a practiced flip of her mad hair and gives me a sparkling smile that makes my stomach swoop in an agreeable sort of way.

“Well, love,” I murmur in her ear, “have any use for an accomplished magician?”

Her shoulder lifts and falls. “We already have one. Perhaps there’s a use for you in the Freak Tent, if you make a fine barker.”

“Oh, I can bark. But I’d rather battle your reigning charmer and take his place.”

The horse stops and sighs, and Merissa manages to slide off without touching me. When she looks up, her eyes seem to glow red. “Don’t even try. He’s very good. He’ll rip you to shreds.”

“Oh, so you know the future. Are you a fortune-teller, then?” I ask playfully.

She chuckles. “I’m a woman.”

And she slaps the horse’s rump, which makes Kali leap forwards with a scream, throwing me backwards. It takes every bit of cleverness I have to turn the flailing fall into a neat back flip, but I’ve been in the circus long enough to have trained as an acrobat. Landing neatly on my feet, I whip off my hat, bow deeply, and hold out a bouquet of blood-red roses.

“Oh, I noticed,” I say with a grin.

4.

S
HE DOESN’T
take the flowers. Doesn’t point me in the direction of her grub-like Master Bailey. With steps somehow both firm and dainty and hips swaying like a cobra, she saunters to her dirty white steed, plucks her rope from the ground, and leads the now-placid creature away.

But I know this dance, and I am an old hand at legerdemain. Even without a single soul visible, I understand the workings of this circus as well as a chirurgeon knows the inside of a man’s chest cavity. Stuffing the flowers back into my hat, I settle the topper firmly on my head and shoot my cuffs, heading off for the same thing the chirurgeon seeks: the object of brightest shining red.

Sure enough, painted on the side of the red wagon in elegant curlicues is
Master Bailey’s Circus of Wanders
, and I want nothing more than to slit the man’s throat and give him a lesson in proper spelling. Just as Merissa said there would be, there’s a book-sized window with closed shutters. A wooden plaque hangs from a nail, reading THE MASTER IS OUT, and I shake my head and flip it around.

The other side also says THE MASTER IS OUT.

There’s a bell cord, but it’s easy enough to follow its path up to the eaves and see the bucket of something or other poised to fall on the head of anyone foolish enough to attempt to ring it.

“Bugger it all,” I mutter.

Reaching into my pocket, I pull out not a bit of magic powder or a dastardly device...but a simple letter opener that doubles as a dagger in a pinch. Without a word of warning, I jigger the shutters open, careful to hold my face away should anyone be waiting within to give me a well-deserved punch in the nose.

The wagon’s interior is dark and still, thick and heavy with the sort of constantly smothered fire favored by arthritic aunts, and ripe with a dozen smells, none appetizing. I see no sign of this Master Bailey.

“What the blast, cretin?”

I’m so startled that I stumble back and only barely manage to turn it into a courtly bow. The voice comes from everywhere at once, and I finally pinpoint it to a phonograph’s brass flower under the wagon’s roof. Ah, yes. The speaker Merissa mentioned. How quaint.

“My lord, I’ve brought you the grandest magic show in the land of Sang,” I start, but a juicy laugh ends in a clearing throat, an oddly tinny quaver through the speaker. I barely manage to dodge sideways as the glob of tobacco lobs out of the window and splatters in the dust.

“Got a magician,” he says. “Don’t need two. You’re welcome to duel the other fellow, if you need a job bad enough. But I suspect...” He trails off, and I can feel the cat’s claws extend. “If you really are the grandest magician in Sang, I’m sure you’re off for greener pastures than this little caravan, eh?”

“I’m not much of a one for pastures, sir. But you’ll find me a Jack-of-all-trades. Ringmaster, acrobat, sideshow barker...”

“Keep going, lad. You’ll eventually get to the bit where you’re poking at trash with a pointy stick.” Deep in his dragon’s lair, I can imagine him chewing his tobacco and thinking on it. And it’s not safe to let haughty hermits think too much when a fellow’s livelihood is at stake.

“Bring me your magician, then,” I say, chin up. “I could do with a good duel.”

The bastard cackles like a hen and spits again. “You’ll battle him on the stage tonight. Winner gets his wagon. Loser bunks with the wolf boy and shovels manure behind Merissa’s beasts. If he lives.”

I don’t even have to think. “Done. And the name is—”

“Don’t bother,” he says. “I don’t care about names until I’m having them painted on the sides of wagons.”

M
Y NEXT
stop is the dining car. It’s easy enough to find—they always are. Just look for braces of dead bludbunnies hanging from hooks on the side of the wagon, waiting to become tomorrow’s stew. I’m doubly disappointed when I step inside: Merissa isn’t here, and it’s clear where my people stand in the hierarchy. Just like in a city, the Bludmen are firmly corralled into a black-painted corner while the humans and daimons have windows, clean booths, and a buffet of whatever offal they desire. I see only two Bludmen, or rather, one Bludman with two heads, all four eyes fastened on me and glittering madly. I nod and head for the cauldron of blood and a tower of chipped teacups to make it seem like a civilized sort of drink instead of liquid flesh sold by the stoppered tube.

“What’re you lookin’ at, mate?” A half-daimon the color of a November sky twirls a long railroad nail between his fingers, pointing it at me when I look him up and down by the beverage dispenser.

“Lunch,” I say. “Or are you a daimon that feeds on idiocy?”

He pokes the nail into his nose as if storing it for later and readies himself for fisticuffs, but his venomous tail has been cut off. Amputation is the price daimons pay to work for humans in cabarets and caravans, and without his tail’s magic and stinger, he can’t do anything more than leap around like a lizard. At least all I sacrifice is, temporarily, my freedom.

Beside him, a dark red daimon lady in a dancing costume catches his sleeve. “Don’t be a fool,” she says. “Can’t you feel the desire flowing off him? He’ll tear you to pieces, and gladly.”

I give her a nod of respect. “I am hungry for my place in the world, madam. But I’m aiming a good bit higher than the freak tent.” I see it register in her eyes—she knows me or has at least heard my name. There’s nothing for it, so I stick out my hand. “Criminy Stain, at your service.”

With a wry grin, she lets me kiss the back of her wrist. “Mademoiselle Caprice, dancing mistress. Charmed, monsieur. I’ve heard tell of your show. But we’ve a magician here already, you know.”

“I was informed as such and will be murdering him tonight.”

She takes back her hand and tucks a fist under her chin, thinking. “Tricky. He’s rather good, you see.”

“But he’s not currently in this room?”

“He is not.”

I select one blood vial, and when no one stops me, a second. The top teacup is chipped, so I rub a finger over it, muttering under my breath until the porcelain is unblemished.“If you’ve any ideas regarding how to best this magician, you’ll find me around,” I say.

She gives a polite nod. “Ah, but monsieur, is it better to help the devil you know or the devil you don’t?”

I let my eyes twinkle at her and doff my hat. “It’s better to make friends with the more devilish of the two devils.”

And since we both know that silly, arbitrary lines are drawn in this wagon, I’ve no choice but to head for the blackened corner where I belong. When I run my own caravan, there will be no such division. Fear does stupid things to a soft man, and Old Bailey is softer and more fearful than most. Judging by the crafty, sullen looks on the two-headed Bludman I’m about to dominate, there’s an undercurrent of dangerous neglect over the truly murderous, and it’s almost ironic that anyone would expect a simple coat of black paint to keep real monsters in their place.

“Is this seat taken?” I tilt my head to the bench opposite him. Them? Damn, but proper grammar wasn’t made to address multiple heads.

“Depends. You as frilly as you look?” snarls one head, and the other just raises a brow.

I gently place the teacup and blood vials on the scarred black table. “If you’d care to go outside and have your throats ripped out, I’d be glad to accommodate you, but I’m afraid I’ve only the one handkerchief and I’m going to drink my lunch first.”

“I’m Catarrh. That’s Quincy. Who the hell are you?”

A vial in each fist, I pop the corks with my thumbs and let the warm blood mix in my cup.

“Only allowed one vial per meal, new meat,” Catarrh says, and Quincy chitters.

“I’m Criminy Stain, and I don’t take orders well. How do you get away with it?”

As I sip my blood, and it’s not bad blood at all, Quincy chews his sharpened nails and Catarrh considers me more carefully, and I know now which head I’ll always have to watch out for.

“Get away with what?” Catarrh says, feigning innocence and failing utterly.

I toss down the rest of my blood and snatch his poorly tied cravat in my fist, jerking him across the table. My other fist smashes my teacup into Quincy’s face as my fangs find Catarrh’s neck and settle there, for just a moment, for just long enough, in the darkest sort of promise. I slowly draw a red line across his throat with a tooth and toss him back against the bench.

“You drink from customers. And yet you still have a job. And that tells me that whoever runs this caravan is a damned fool who’s scared of you. I think you’ll find that I am neither.”

It’s a tense moment, and I tap my talons on the table, one-two-three. Quincy sniffles to himself, trying to lick the cuts on his cheeks, and Catarrh touches the scratch on his neck and breathes hard through his nose for a moment before whispering, “I submit.”