Freakshow (33 page)

“Yeah, I might,” I replied and crossed the space between us to smack his rear while he zipped up.

“Hey there, woman,” he laughed, “I’m going to catch an
important
part in the zipper here if you don’t watch it.”

“Oh dear god, I’ll back off,” I grinned, holding my hands in the air.

“You two are so cute, I could puke,” Mila said, then paused, put her hand on her chest and let out a loud burp.

“Ugh, I smell coyote,” Cai said, screwing his nose up. “I’m sorry, Mila. Not only do I want to get Liv alone to fuck her like a savage beast, but I can’t be around you tonight with those burps.”

She broke out laughing and said, “Sure, sure, whatever. You two go off and do your thing. I’ve got some more reading to do before I leave anyhow.”

“Let us know if you find anything good,” I said, laughing as Cai wrapped his arms around me from behind and started nibbling my neck and ears, making mock growling noises.

“Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?” he snuffled against my flesh.

“Not I, said the horny girl who wanted to fuck the big bad wolf, like, now!” I giggled as he tickled me.

“Then let’s make that happen,” he replied, dropping me to the grass, careful to hold me in his arms and set me gently at the last moment.

“You jerk, I thought you were dropping me,” I cried out, my heart pounding.

“Never,” he said, hovering over me, his loose hair hanging down and tickling my cheeks. “I will never let you go. And I will never hurt you. In fact, I would never let you get hurt.”

“That’s a convenient thing to say to a girl who can’t feel pain,” I quipped, raising my brow sarcastically.

“You know what I mean,” he said, his tone low and serious, his eyes deep with the love that resided there. “I wouldn’t want to live in a world without you in it,” he continued, “That’s what I mean.”

I felt the sharp tingle of tears behind my eyes, thinking the same thing as he, but unable to voice it.

I’d long believed that if you gave words to your fears, the Devil would hear and make them come true.

Instead of agreeing with him, I pulled him down for a kiss, and to drink my tears and love.

*****

“G
et in here,” Orion hissed. It was several nights after the run to the junkyard and he’d fully recovered from his booze induced bender.

And I was nervous tonight for some reason. Although I had been living as though encased in bubble wrap, Cairo’s intoxicating presence creating that detachment from reality, I was worried about my safety. It was if I could taste danger on the wind and it was coming for me.

After Dark was busy, over crowded if the fire inspector did a late night visit, but they rarely came around after the sun went down.

The energy was different though, it felt more savage, as if they were demanding blood tonight and would get it.

Mine, of course, but more. Something more visceral and raw, exposed meat and guts, that kind of thing.

Cairo put his arm around me and whispered, “You don’t have to do this, Liv. You owe him nothing.”

“I know,” I replied, gathering courage from his embrace. “I feel like we’re this close to figuring out who’s taking the girls. I’m sure they’re here tonight, let me perform and watch the crowd for me, okay?”

“You amaze me,” he said and leaned down to kiss me fully. “I’ll be right here for you, you’ll be okay.”

It almost hurt to break away when I heard Orion hiss my name again.

I walked to the staging area and felt his hand dig into my arm, it would have hurt if I could feel it, I could see the red marks he was leaving in my flesh.

I followed him to the main stage when we were given our cue. Alexi joined us again, and I caught a glimpse of Carl exiting stage left.

It seemed everybody was out working After Dark tonight.

My stomach felt fluttery, nervous, and I tasted sour bile in the back of my throat. Something was off, and everything was screaming at me to get out, but I had no evidence.

Besides, with Cai just a few feet away, and a crowded tent ready for a show, but not death, I felt I was okay. I would survive.

But that didn’t calm the twitch in the back of my head, that sixth sense I was just now beginning to trust and depend on, but the thing I was ignoring deliberately right now.

Orion did his dramatic speech to the crowd, they grew hushed and quiet as he dragged me onto the table and began our show.

Alexi held my hands this time, he held them together hard, without any give. I whimpered, feeling the bones grind together as he gripped them in his huge hands.

It wasn’t of course the pain, but it was the force behind it. I didn’t like the way he wouldn’t look into my eyes, and the way Orion was rough with me, uncaring.

I rolled my eyes wildly for Cairo, but couldn’t find him in the darkness off the stage.

Orion flipped me onto my stomach and Alexi let my hands go free. I started to stretch them, to steady myself, when Orion grabbed them and jerked them behind my back.

“I don’t like this...” I said in a quiet voice, starting to struggle for real.

He was silent, the crowd had that energetic hush to it, I could imagine them all sitting on the edge of their seats.

I heard a clinking metal sound and realized Orion was going to use handcuffs. Fear alarmed through me, and adrenaline started to pump. I jerked and struggled, but couldn’t get away.

Something we had discovered echoed in my head then, that silver could be my downfall. My one weakness.

Orion wouldn’t have known this would he? Were the cuffs made of silver?

“Cai!” I screamed as Alexi pushed me down into the table. My face was squished against the hard surface and my voice muffled, but I began to scream anyways. “Cairo, help! This isn’t part of it! Orion! Alexi! What the fuck are you doing?”

There was no response from either man, and I could sense the excitement flickering over the crowd. They were completely silent, which was extremely rare. I tried to move my head to look at them, but Alexi held me down.

I felt weakened as soon as Orion got the cuffs on. I felt like my arms were gelatin and my body was melting. I felt the weight of the air oppressing me, making it difficult to catch my breath.

“Now we are going to have fun,” Orion whispered into my ear and dragged something over my face. A black hood. I was cut off from oxygen and the world.

“Stop,” I screamed, but all that came out was a mumbled protest. I heard Alexi chuckle, a deep, evil sound.

I should have known all along that this was where girl’s disappeared. I should have figured that out, that there was something odd about Alexi, and I’d known all along that Orion was quite mad.

But I hadn’t done anything about it because of my love for Cairo. My love became my weakness, and it was my greatest defeat here in the end of things.

I didn’t want to die though, but I was as weak as a newborn, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t get away, and I couldn’t even tell what Orion was doing to me.

Tears leaked from my eyes and I tried to reach out to the earth, to draw energy.

But it was my hands that did it, I needed my hands or feet and I need the mask off.

Orion’s voice came from beside me, even through the hood I could feel the heat from his breath.

“You thought you’d come in here and steal away all my power, all my control,” he muttered angrily, “You thought you’d walk around with your big eyes and pretend you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing. But you knew...you knew exactly what you were doing.”

“I didn’t,” I tried to say, unsure if he even heard me. “I know nothing!”

I was sobbing at this point, fear driving me to keep fighting, even though my logical side knew there was no use. I didn’t know where Cairo was, but either he was in on it or he was being held captive himself.

And I knew in my gut that he wasn’t in on it. I just knew.

I struggled again, weakly and ineffectually, but I struggled.

I felt Orion jabbing the hook into my back with no care this time. He was in it for real. I’m sure there was a part of him that wished I could feel it, really feel it when he stuck them in.

I struggled again, like a fish on the end of a line, out of water and slowly losing their life.

I didn’t want this though, I didn’t want it to end like this.

Orion jabbed another hook in, and another. I felt my blood leaking out, taking with it my remaining energy.

He began to lift me, pull my body farther from the earth, farther from my power, and let me hang there while he waxed poetic to the audience about the nature of pain and pleasure, and how the ultimate orgasm would be tantamount to death.

I felt myself fading as he spoke, losing consciousness, not from the loss of blood but from the loss of contact with the earth. From the silver breaking my connection with the earth, my mother. I choked on my tears, felt wave after wave of misery wash over me, and squeezed my eyes shut and tried to find it in me to keep fighting.

Orion’s hands were on me then, pressing against me, his breath coming ragged and harsh. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could feel it. His hands, so opposite of Cai’s, soft and damp, hot to the touch.

He caressed me and drove needles into me, I could feel the way they pierced my skin.

He cupped my ass and held me steady, I screamed, a weakening mewling noise as Orion slid his hands under the thin fabric of my panties and shoved himself inside of me.

A finger, a second, and in his other hand he was holding the ropes that suspended me, dragging me back, driving me onto his slick fingers.

I cried and felt defeated at his assault on my body. I knew I had to fight him, to stop what was going to happen, but I was so weak.

I forced myself through the humiliation and draining silver on my wrists. I was more than mythology and superstition, I was Liv and nothing could stop me now that I knew who I was.

I thought of Cairo, his eyes when he looked at me, full of lust and love. The self-conscious way he brushed a stray strand of hair over his ear when it had escaped. The way he held me when we were sleeping at night, when I would wake up in his arms, his warmth enveloping me, his breathing comforting me and sending me back to sleep.

I had to do it for him, I had to fight to know what happened to Cairo. I had to know.

I took a long brittle breath and extended myself through my feet. I imagined my arms gone, so the energy in my body would bypass the silver hand cuffs.

I was grateful that Orion hadn’t thought to use silver hooks to suspend me or I would have been toast for sure.

I felt a delicate, tentative tendril of energy snake down my leg, bridge the space between my body and the table, and slither down the table leg to the stage, hitting the organic wood, a once living thing that made it easier to travel, and slide straight into the earth.

It bounded up to me, and I heard the audience gasp. I didn’t care who saw me then, I just knew I had to get free.

I drew more and more power to me, through my feet.

I felt Orion’s hands on my ankles, cold and rough, seeking to prevent the flow of what I could only imagine was that glowing blue light.

I heard crackling and smelled singed hair, heard Orion call out and felt him draw back.

It was as if I was no longer in complete control of my body, I felt as if I’d opened myself to another being. A greater force than my puny life, one that fed on love and joy, the same love and joy that had kept me from crossing over into darkness.

I screamed, filled my lungs, and snapped the handcuffs, freeing my arms.

The other being felt almost shocked at the state of things, my body, the air in my lungs, the blood and lack of pain.

She screamed too, a primal, gut wrenching shriek that I couldn’t tell if it was in my head or coming from my mouth.

She twisted my body on the hooks, reached around and heated them until they melted and released me.

I fell to the table, my hands dragged the hood off and I saw the world through the eyes of the goddess.

It was in high definition, I could smell the fear on Orion and Alexi, felt the waves of panic sweeping through the crowd, and fed on all of it.

“How fucking dare you try to bind my child!” her voice spoke through me, my chest echoing and booming like a drum. “How dare you tear into her body like it’s your own flesh!”

“I’m...I’m...sorry!” Orion cried out, dropping to the floor on his knees, paying obeisance to her. “Forgive me, Brigid, I knew not that she was one of yours.”

“Lies!” the voice boomed out of me. “You knew as well as you knew where your own ass was the last time you wiped it.”

She had a sense of humour, I liked her. I supposed I would have to like her, being one of her creations apparently.

“Please, forgive me. I simply wanted to teach her a lesson, to show her who was in charge of the show,” Orion pleaded.

“You and your pathetic wolf magic,” Brigid roared through me. We stood and walked towards him, she flexed my muscles and looked at my hands, cracking the joints and finding them curious things. I sensed it had been centuries since she’d taken human form.

She lifted one of my feet and dropped it down, landing on Orion’s right hand. He yelped but dared not move. Brigid ground my foot into it, I could feel his bones snapping and rolling against each other, his screams filled me with immense pleasure.

“You will lose your ability to craft,” Brigid said, “be pleased you did not lose your hand entirely. Now go, be gone from me or I will change my mind.”

Orion leapt to his feet and ran, not looking back.

We turned and faced the crowd, half of them had already fled, but the remaining few were staring at us defiantly. As if expecting something more for their dollar.

“This stage is closed,” she bellowed, her voice sending sound waves strong enough to knock over the first row of chairs. “If you are found here again, depraved humans, you will be executed without cause. Now LEAVE!”

That did it, fear slid from them like sweat and tears, and they knocked each other over to get out of the tent before Brigid destroyed them.

She felt immense pleasure and satisfaction at their reaction.