Flesh Circus Read Free Page A

coughed, dryly. Retched.
    “So it is.” Perry grinned. The greenish light from the Ringmaster’s cane etched shadows on his face, exposing a breath of
     what lived under the mask of banal humanity. “May your efforts be fruitful, brother.”
    “No less than your own.” The Ringmaster glanced at me. “Are you satisfied, hunter? May we pass?”
    “Go on in.” The words were bitter ash in my mouth. “Just behave yourselves.”
    Ikaros struggled to his feet. He moved slowly, as if it hurt. I finally lowered the gun, watching Perry. Who was grinning
     like he’d just discovered gold in his underpants. His face wavered between sharply handsome and bland as usual, and the tip
     of his tongue flickered out briefly to touch the corner of his thin lips. Even in the darkness the color—a wet cherry-red,
     seen in an instant and then gone—was wrong. I had to clamp down on myself to stop the sweat rising along the curve of my lower
     back.
    The Ringmaster took the Trader’s elbow and steered him away, back toward the convoy. Their engines roused one by one, and
     they pulled out, a creaking train of etheric bruising, tires shushing as they bounced up onto the hardtop from the access
     road and gained speed, heading for the well of light that was my city below.
    Last of all went the limo. The Trader slumped against a back passenger-side window, and the inside of the vehicle crawled
     with green phosphorescence, shining out past the tinting. Its engine made a sound like chattering teeth and laughter, and
     its taillights flashed once as it hopped up onto the road and passed the city limits.
    As they wound down the highway, they started to glitter. Each car, even the ancient Chevy, dewed with hard candy of false
     sparkling. They wasted no time in starting the seduction.
    Jesus.
    Perry stood, watching. I swallowed. Took another two steps back. The scar was still hard and hot against my wrist, like almost-burning
     metal clapped against cool skin.
    I waited for him to do something. A conversational gambit, or a physical one, to make me react.
    “Good night, sweetheart.” He finally moved, turning on his heel and striding for the limousine.
    It was amazing. It was probably the first time in years he hadn’t fucked with me.
    It rattled me more than it should. But then again, when the Cirque de Charnu comes to town, a hunter is right to feel a little
     rattled.

2

    M ine is definitely not a day job. The day is for sleeping. A long golden time of sunny safety hits about noon and peters out at about five in the winter, somewhere around eight in the summer. I like to be home, curled up in bed with Saul’s arms around me.
    I do
not
like wrestling with a Trader in a filthy storm sewer reeking of the death of small animals. I don’t like being thrown and
     hitting concrete so hard bones break, and I hate it when they try to drown me.
    So many people have tried to drown me. And I live in the
desert,
for Chrissake.
    This close to the river there’s always seepage in the bottom of the tunnels, and the Trader—a long thin grasshopper who had
     once been a man, filed teeth champing and yellow-green saliva spewing as he screamed—shoved me down further, sludge squirting
     up and fouling my coat even more.
    I clocked him on the side of the head with a knifehilt-braced fist, got a mouthful of usable air, and almost wished I hadn’t
     breathed. The smell was
that
bad.
    Candlelight splashed the crusted, weeping walls. The Trader had set up an altar down here, bits of rotting flesh and blood-stiffened
     fur festooning the low concrete shelf. Cats and dogs had gone missing in this area for a while, but the Trader hadn’t bumped
     above the radar until small children started disappearing.
    I had more than a sneaking suspicion where some of those children could be found. Or
parts
of them, anyway.
    The Trader yelped, losing his grip on me in the slime and scudge. The knife spun around my fingers, silver loaded along the
     flat of the blade