Circus of Blood (4 page)

The sign loomed over us. It arched across a center pole that had been driven straight into the ground. Deep. Talon marks scarred the pole at about chest level. Something had driven it into place.

Something with claws and inhuman strength.

The sign blinked, outlined in round bulbs that stuttered into the night. Words swept across it in a flourish of black and crimson.

“Cirque du Sangre.” Sully turned to us. “I don’t understand.”

“Did you think it would be called ‘Vamps Be Here’?”

“No.”

“Circus of Blood.” Father Mulcahy read aloud around his cancerstick. “They might as well have.”

We stepped through the archway.

Gravel crunched underfoot.

The midway was empty.

We were all alone. Not one person darkened the street. The carnival stretched before us post-apocalyptically desolate.

Strings of lights slithered overhead, swinging low, threatening to drop and wrap an unwary neck. Smaller tents lined the walls of the midway, canvas booths sewn in ebony and crimson. The stitches were haphazard, juttering back and forth along seams like badly sutured wounds. They flapped around games that sat inside their folds. Bait.

Ping-Pong Ball and Fishbowls.

All the bowls lining the table were filled with murky water. Things swirled inside. In the center, something did a quick flip that slung out a few fetid droplets.

Whac-A-Mole.

The rims of the holes spattered with chunky gore to match the ends of the mallets. One tiny, sleek-furred body hung, stuck in a hole by its back legs. The front of its body swung freely and loosely, little paws clawing weakly at the air under it.

We kept walking.

The Wurlitzer kept playing, pelting us with its nerve-grating, off-kilter tune.

Past the game booths, the midway opened up.

Sully gagged, the noise pulled out of his throat and squeezed to death. Tears ran hot and oily on his face. “What is that?”

“Breathe through your mouth, son.”

I was already following the priest’s advice, but the stench in the air coated the inside of my mouth in a thick greasy layer. It clotted in my throat, trying to yank my stomach up through it.

Spoiled meat.

Things fried in rancid oil.

Strychnine-sweet cotton candy.

Boiled peanuts left to mold.

The acrid nose ruffle of burned popcorn.

They all combined in the textured perfume of corruption.

Rides moved on the midway edge, crouching beasts in the grass.

The Tilt-A-Whirl pirouetted malevolently, the chairs painted with eyes that spun so they were always watching us.

The Scrambler rattled lazily in its prescribed figure eight. The cars were molded in the shape of faces, each of them leering as they lurched out toward us, disappointment naked in their eyes that we weren’t
quite
close enough.

Nooses hung under the seats on the rickety Ferris wheel, swaying as it rolled in fits and starts like a tuberculosis coughing fit.

The Wurlitzer played on.

The hellish tune hammered at my spine.

The midway channeled us to the main tent at the end of the row. Cows to the slaughterhouse. The rot black and charnel red tent stood silent and imposing, canvas flaps shut tight. My power prickled along my spine, centipede legs trilling up the back of my neck.

The nerve under my eye began to twitch.

Stepping up, I wrapped my fists around the edges of the tent flap, canvas oil slippery under my fingers.

A saying mangled in my head.

Once more into the breach, my friend, once more. Cry
Havoc!
And let slip the Hunger Dogs of War.

I threw back the tent flaps and stepped inside.

The air hit me like a wet sheet. Stale and muggy, a fog of packed humanity that clung to the skin like other people’s sweat. The fog was gutted by the harsh snakeskin scent of vampire.

My power jolted inside me, rushing up under my skin. Everything dipped down and sideways as my head swam. Vampire powers were being used, bats beating their wings against the inside of my skull.

Light crashed against us, ripping away my night vision. A spotlight. My hand was full of gun. I was blind, couldn’t see a thing, but I was ready.

The spotlight tilted, changing the angle. I was still bathed in light, but my eyes weren’t painted white.

We were standing in front of three giant rings centered around a tent pole that zoomed up into the dark. Outside of it was a half circle of bleachers packed with people.

Scared people.

They all sat silent, clutching each other, fear naked on their faces. Families, teenagers on dates, a Girl Scout troop in their uniforms, and a group of senior citizens. Chains draped off their ankles, trapping them in place on the bleachers.

Now I knew where all the people were.

The Wurlitzer filled the tent, music climbing in an epileptic fit. It banged away, speeding up, swirling, a tornado of clashing notes that made my teeth grind together. It crashed into silence as a spotlight scorched across a man in the center ring.

He was stretched long and thin, all bones and angles. A stovepipe hat perched on lanky hair. It sat crooked, brim wide enough to cast a shadow over the face under it. All I could see were two red eyes and a long, devilish Vandyke goatee.

And a set of long, curved fangs.

He wore a topcoat, black velvet tails, and lapels. It was a dirty burgundy brocade, worked through with brass stitching in an intricate design. Filthy lace flopped around his wrists and at his throat, held in place by a ruby that looked like a giant drop of crystallized blood. He stood hipshot, skinny legs encased in black leather peg-leg pants so shredded they were more gone than there. Gaping holes gleamed with pale dead skin underneath. A coiled bullwhip tapped his thigh in one taloned hand.

He was a vampire cross between heroin addiction and lizard-king cool. Back alley sleazy and python dangerous. He lifted a chunky microphone out of the ’30s to bloodless lips. There was no cord attached to it. His voice carried through the tent on waves of vampiric power. It was a smooth tenor with just a slight rasp that tugged at the ear, whiskey flavoring the blood that soaked his vocal cords.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, welcome to the Cirque du Sangre. Tonight we have a very special guest.” His hand gestured with a flourish, lace fwapping the back of an ivory-pale hand. “Deaaaaconnnnnn CHALK!”

Why does every fucking bloodsucker know my name?

My hands tightened on gun grips as I strode forward, Father Mulcahy and Sully just a step or two behind. My fingers rested on the triggers of both guns, one tiny twitch from firing. They were pointed down at the ground.

Dammit.

I was going to have to put them away. I couldn’t use them in this tent, not with all the people lining the bleachers. They made a wall of civilian that surrounded us. Bullets don’t stop. Not big ass .45-caliber bullets anyway. Use them to blow apart a vampire’s skull, and out the other side you have a bullet that is still traveling.

That is a recipe for disaster when you’re surrounded by innocent bystanders.

Surrounded by targets.

I flicked the safeties, shoving the pistols back under my arms.

I
hate
not using my guns.

But I did have a hatchet. It had a nice heft as I pulled it out of my belt.

The Ringmaster twisted, hunching around himself, neck twisting to leer at me. He was loose in his clothes, disjointed like a puppet. “Welcome to our show tonight. It’s gonna be a scream! Tell me, how is our little friend the Were-bat?”

“I want the cure.”

“Don’t we all, vampire slayer?”

“I’m an occult bounty hunter, not a vampire slayer.”

He tilted his head back, looking down his bladed nose. “You deny it? You killed so many of my kind just months ago.”

“I’m about to slay one more if you don’t stop wasting my time. I want the cure and I want these people let go.”

“And then you will let me live?” Sarcasm pushed heavy through thick fangs.

“Cut the shit, Varney. You are dead. No negotiation. Give me what I want.”

“You come to my house and threaten me?”

“You called me a vampire slayer.” I waved behind me, indicating the priest and the Were-weasel. “Me and my boys can take you.”

The smile was wicked. “Ahhhh, but I am not alone.”

The shadows moved, breaking apart. The spotlight never wavered, locked on the center ring, bathing the four of us. The shadows fell away as the Ringmaster’s kiss stepped into the light.

We were facing a freak show of vampires.

The first shadow stepped over the ring in an expanse of paisley-covered undead flesh. The leg that broke into the light swung slowly, ponderously, to crash on the sawdust. The body that followed was enormous, an avalanche of a woman. Her moon face was fringed in thick locks of hair like a mask. Her fangs were like tusks jutting under a handlebar mustache as wide as my hand.

The next one was even larger than the bearded lady. Instead of loose jiggly flesh, this one was stacked with slabs of muscle. Grotesque bundles made his upper body, striations showing through marble skin. His chest was almost as wide as the front of the Comet; arms bigger than my thighs hung off titanic shoulders. A leopard-print leotard strained across it, cutting into one side of his neck.

A neck that tapered up into a pinched skull the size of a child’s.

His head was tiny, mismatched to his body. The face pulled tight with inbreeding, beady eyes too close, jaw too small, chin too soft. His fangs were dainty and bucked, crowded too close, just like the rest of his features.

The next two slithered out together. The one on the left dragged his belly on the ground, pulling himself along on arms that were deformed into wide flippers of flesh. His legs were fused, flipper feet spread behind him like a tail. He hissed at me, wrinkled jowls swinging.

The one on the right came into the ring of light with elbows and knees jutting out. She was twisted, her body wrenched. Chest down, hips up she crab walked, hands thumping on the ground, sending up clouds of sawdust. The fingers were fused together in pronged claws, the knuckles swollen and red. She had been turned young, perpetually pubescent with ratty pigtails and a schoolgirl dress.

Children turned as vampires always creep me the hell out. This one, with her twisted body, lobster-claw hands, and little-girl face was the worst one I had ever seen.

Until the clown stepped out.

He tumbled into the ring, clomping in oversized shoes. His suit was striped black and yellow, bagging around him. The sleeves tattered around hands that stretched into claws. They clicked and clacked against each other. The wide, frilly collar of the jumpsuit framed a grease-painted face. His lips were pulled in a wide, fang-filled grimace, stretched by hooks in the corners attached to wires that ran behind a nap of cotton-candy hair. A round ball was nailed onto the nose between blood-pooled eyes. Hooks sank into the lids, yanking them up, stretching them wide open. The wires from them pulled taut, stapled into a bare dome of skull. Blood trickled over whiteface, running in tracks down his cheeks.

I hate clowns.

The Ringmaster doffed his top hat, bowing with a flourish. “Allow me to introduce my family.”

The vampire freaks fanned out across from us. Father Mulcahy pulled the sword out of the cane with a yank of his wrist.

Sully bumped me. “Why don’t you two have your guns out? I think it would be a really good idea for you to have your guns out now.”

I didn’t look at him. “Too many people around. They’d catch the crossfire.”

The Ringmaster laughed. “Don’t think we didn’t plan it this way. The perfect trap for the vampire slayer.” He shook out his whip, coiling it at his feet. “Surrounded by humans so you can’t use your guns, cut off from your lycanthrope allies by my manipulation, outnumbered and outmatched.”

“What’s your endgame, Barnum Bailey?”

“Only to take over everything. You killed so many of us that now there are almost no vampires in this part of the world. Thank you. You are the reason my family can rise up and seize control to own a territory brimming with opportunity to hunt.”

“And you thought I would just let this happen?”

“No, Deacon Chalk, that is why I used dark magick to fashion my blood into a weapon to kill your allies. With one move, I have taken away your filthy animals and led you here alone. Tonight I will drink your blood. Tomorrow I will rule.”

I shook my hand out, metal on metal chiming in my palm. “Nice to know the plan, asshole. Now I can fuck it up.” I looked over at Sully. “Now would be a good time.”

His eyes were wide, jittering around, trying to watch everything. “A good time to what?”

“Shift. Turn into your animal form.”

“Uhhhh, can’t.”

The vampires were moving, jostling around behind the Ringmaster, who watched us through narrow eyes.

“The hell do you mean
can’t
?”

“It’s not a full moon.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Just my damn luck to have a lycanthrope backup whose transformation is tied to the moon cycle. I signed up for the Hulk and got Bruce Banner instead.

“Get out.” He didn’t move. My elbow flashed, driving into his shoulder, making him cry out. “Sully, get the fuck out of here before you get me and Father Mulcahy killed.”

“I can fight.”

Father Mulcahy’s voice snapped out. “Go, son. Do as he says.”

The Ringmaster cracked his whip. “He goes nowhere.”

“Fuck you, carny.” I stepped forward. “Go and keep going, Sully.” He took a step back toward the tent flap. My voice roared out of me. “NOW!”

From the corner of my eye, I saw the Were-weasel turn and run. The Ringmaster leaned back, bullwhip slithering behind him, arm stretching back.

I could see it in my mind: He was going to snap that whip out, wrapping it around Sully and reeling him back in.

His arm jerked, the whip zipping forward toward Sully’s back.

My arm whipped up, hand flinging out. My fingers opened around a flash of light.

Two shuriken whizzed across the ring, sinking into the Ringmaster’s stomach in a splash of cold, dead blood, spoiling his aim. He folded around the shuriken, smoke rising from his guts as the silver burned undead flesh. Sully slipped through the tent flap and was gone.

Father Mulcahy stepped up, sword held in front of him. His spent cigarette fell from his lip with the flick of his tongue.

“Well, now you went and did it.”