The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels) (10 page)

Mab chuckles.
“You have served me for ninety-two years, Paul. And you are due to serve
another forty before your contract is up. But if you believe I have failed my
end of the bargain, well, I am an honest businesswoman if nothing else. I
follow my own rules. You are free to go.”

The guy
slouches visibly with relief.

“Thank you,”
he says.

She nods and
he begins to turn away.

“But,” she
whispers. The word hangs in the air like an executioner’s ax. “As you will
clearly remember from line 76C, early termination of the contract for whatever
reason also terminates the magic that kept you — what did you call it?
Immortal.”
Paul stiffens and looks back, his eyes wide. “Which means, my dear servant,
that I can no longer protect you from the hands of time. Ninety-two years is a
long time, Paul. And had you just waited another forty, you could have
prevented them from ever catching up with you.”

Paul opens
his mouth, but no sound comes out. He reaches both hands up to his neck and
makes a horrible gagging noise. No one goes to help him. We all just take a
step backward and try not to flinch.

He drops to
his knees as wrinkles etch themselves into his face and hands, his skin
yellowing and sagging, his veins bulging blue. His hair turns white in a matter
of seconds and falls to the ground like dandelion fluff, his teeth yellowing
and following in stony suit. His whole body dries up from the inside out. His eyes
roll back in his head as a spasm wracks him. He topples. And like a husk, he
caves in upon himself, flesh eating skin, until all that’s left is a pile of
clothes and a few mounds of ash.

“A shame,”
Mab says, almost to herself. “I’ve lost two good performers today.”

She looks
straight at me. Her eyes pin me like a cobra’s. “Vivienne. Can you juggle?”

“I — ” Then I
realize it’s not a question and nod, my stomach sinking even further. Melody
said I wouldn’t make it here if I didn’t learn to lie. I’m starting to think
the opposite is true.

“Good,” Mab
continues, completely ignoring my lack of confidence. “You will learn your
routine from Vanessa and Richard. If you are not onstage by this time next
week, you will be fired.”

She snaps her
fingers, and Roman’s body collapses in a cloud of blue dust behind her.

“The show
will
go on,” she says again. “With or without the lot of you.”

In a sweep of
shadows, she vanishes.

N
o one says
anything after Mab leaves the murder site, but as the crowd disperses, Melody
and Kingston stick behind with me. The two other jugglers — Vanessa, who’s
short with a brown bob, and Richard, who’s tall with wavy
black hair and a heart tattooed on his arm — come up and say they rehearse
three hours a day, between lunch and dinner, and they’ll help me get as good as
Paul in no time. They both look at Kingston when they say this, as though he
holds the secret to success in his fingertips. When they leave, I can’t help
but feel like I’ve been roped into a losing fight. It’s amazing how fast things
can fall to shit.

“Come on,”
Kingston says. He glances back at the swords scattered on the ground. Although
Roman’s body is gone, his blood is still congealing in the sun. “Let’s get out
of here.”

We head to a
picnic bench on the edge of the beach. Melody is walking on her own, but she’s
still got a limp, and Kingston hovers by her side like he’s waiting for her to
collapse. When we reach the table, she leans back onto the wood and lies back
to look at the sky.

“Remind me
not to sleep on the beach again,” she says. “I feel like sand should have asked
me on a date first.”

Kingston
laughs but gives me an
I told you so
sort of look when she breaks into
another cough. She's definitely getting worse. But even after our talk last
night, I refuse to believe he can be responsible for it. Whatever
it
is.

“So,” Mel
continues, oblivious to the shared look. “A juggler, eh? Frankly, I pinned you
as more of an acrobat myself.”

“I’d rather
not think about it,” I say. “I’ve never juggled in my life. Anyway, what the
hell’s going on with you? Are you okay?”

She closes
her eyes and the grin slips. “Nice diversion,” she says. “I’m fine.”

It would have
been a convincing cover-up, if not for the hacking fit that immediately
followed.

“Kingston?” I
ask.

He sighs. “I
don’t know. I can’t heal it, whatever it is.”

“I’m still
here,” she says.

“I’m not
saying anything you don’t already know,” he says. “Besides, Vivienne’s a
friend. She deserves to know.”

And yeah,
it’s sick in light of everything that’s happened in the last twenty minutes,
but that statement makes me feel really, really good.

“Fine,” Mel
says. “Yes, Vivienne. I appear to be quite ill, and our all-powerful witch
can’t do anything about it. As you said, I’d rather not think about it.”

“I was going
to talk to Mab,” Kingston says, half to me and half to Melody. “Whatever this
is, it’s not normal. But I don’t know if she’s in the right mood to be
confronted with another loophole.”

I sit down on
the table and look back at the trailers. I wonder who’s going to gather up
Roman's swords, and who’s going to take his place as head of the Shifters. I
wonder if his blood will still be pooled on the ground when we go back.

“What do you
think she’s going to do?” I ask. “I mean, clearly this isn’t a one-time thing.
First Sabina, then Roman. If that Summer guy was telling the truth, we’re going
to keep getting picked off one by one until the show falls apart.”

“I don’t even
know,” Kingston says with a sigh. He runs his hands through his lank hair and
looks out at the waves. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re already falling apart.
All the Summer Court has to do is pull the right thread, and we’re done.”

“But they
can’t, right? It’s Mab. You heard her. The show will go on.”

Melody
answers, her words laced with bitterness. “Don’t gloss over the details, love.
With
or without the lot of you,
she said. She’s only concerned with the show. I
have no doubt that she’s willing to accept a few casualties if it means she can
keep playing ringleader. Never stopped her before.”

She looks
like she’s about to say more, but Kingston glares at her, which shuts her up
instantly. No one says anything after that. It’s clear that she’s overstepped a
line in the sand I’m not supposed to see. Apparently I don’t deserve to know
everything. I can only hope that what I don’t know doesn’t get me killed.

As they
promised, Richard and Vanessa find me at lunch that afternoon. I’m sitting
across from Kingston while Melody rests in her trailer. I hadn’t said much to
him during the meal. What was there to say? Sorry one of your friends died like
one of Vlad Dracula’s victims, but hey, I hear you’re single so maybe we can go
out to dinner sometime? By the way, what is it that you’re so obviously hiding
from me, because I’m getting tired of waiting around, and I might be the next
to go? There’s nothing
to
say, and the silence just grows and grows
between us. Not that anyone else in the troupe is talkative. Today’s meal is
even quieter than when Sabina was killed. So I just eat my salad and pasta
primavera, and stare at Kingston’s left arm, where the head of his serpentine
tattoo has suddenly taken up residence.

Vanessa spots
me first. She sits down on my left side, setting her tray with a half-eaten
salad and juice next to mine. The distraction is an immediate relief that I
know won’t last long. She smiles at me, and I can’t tell if it’s friendly or
laced with you-can-never-replace-him undertones. It makes me wonder if she and
Paul ever had a thing in those ninety-two years of service.

“So,” she
says, barely giving Kingston a second glance. “Do you actually know how to
juggle?”

“Kind of,” I
say. I try to think back, try to remember juggling oranges in my kitchen or
something like that. The images are there, but they don’t seem to piece
together quite right. It’s like looking through someone else’s childhood
scrapbook. “I think so.”

“Don’t
worry,” she says. “If we can’t train you, Kingston can always bewitch you into
stardom.”

Kingston
coughs slightly. “You know it doesn’t work like that, Vanessa,” he says over
his mug.

Vanessa waves
her hand, “Fine, fine, whatever it is you do, then. I’m just saying, with my
skill and your magic, we’ll have no problem turning her into a young star.”

“What do you
mean?” I ask. Okay, I know I probably couldn’t juggle if my life depended on it
— and my life probably
does
depend on it — but I don’t think I’m that
hopeless.

“I think it’s
best if he explains,” Vanessa says. “I’d just get it wrong.”

“There’s
nothing to explain,” Kingston says evenly. “How about you just do your job and
train her. When that inevitably fails, come find me.”

Vanessa opens
her mouth, but Richard’s arrival spares us from whatever she’s about to say. He
steps up behind her and puts his broad hands on her shoulders. He looks maybe
ten years older than her; he’s probably in his late thirties. But when she
looks up at him, her face instantly becomes all smiles. If that isn’t an I’m-sleeping-with-you
look, I don’t know what is.

“Hey, guys,”
he says. “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,”
Kingston replies.

“Good,” he
says. “I was hoping I could steal Vanessa. We’re going to have to piece
together a duo act for tonight.” He turns to me. “Unless you think you’ll be
ready by then?” He grins.

I decide in
that moment that if I had to choose to save either him or Vanessa from being
eaten by sharks, I’d choose him. Neither of them act fazed by the fact that
their partner was just aged to death in front of their eyes. Maybe Kingston was
right; maybe everyone
is
only looking after their own asses.

“Only if you
want it to be a clown act,” I say. I can no longer remember if it was juggling
I was good at as a kid, or unicycling. Or maybe I’d just
wanted
to be
able to do them.

He chuckles
and helps Vanessa to her feet. They walk off, leaving me, Kingston, and
Vanessa’s half-empty tray.

“Bitch,”
Kingston says the moment she’s out of earshot.

“What was
that all about?” I ask.

“She’s still
pissed that I slept with Richard a few decades back. In my defense, they hadn’t
been seeing each other for at least a year. Girl can hold a fucking grudge.”

My stomach
does a flip and I can’t tell if it’s because he just admitted to sleeping with
a guy or because he just said he’s at least a
few decades
old. Then
again, after watching Paul turn to ash, the notion that Kingston is much older
than he appears isn't as shocking as it should have been. My mouth is hanging
open like a fish, which just brings a smile to his face.

“What? It
gets boring here. You can’t blame me for playing both sides of the field.”

Which just
makes me wonder how many people he
has
slept with. I mean, I can’t
judge. Even though I can’t remember my sexual exploits — which doesn't speak
very highly of them — I know I’m no virgin. But still…
how many?
I didn’t
even really care about the genders.

“I…That’s not
what I meant. What did she mean by that whole bewitching me to stardom thing?”
I say.

“Oh.”

Kingston
picks at the food on his plate, then looks up at me and points his fork at my
face.

“How do I put
this? You’ve seen
The Matrix,
right?”

“Sadly.” I’m
not certain how that memory stands out, but it’s there, swimming in the haze of
my past.

He smiles,
but his voice is serious. “Well, it’s sort of like that. If necessary, I
can…download, if you will, things into your memory. Make you know how to do
things you couldn’t do before.”

“You what?”

“It sounds
bad,” he says. “But I don’t use it if I don’t have to, and even then, I only
use it if the person asks. And
even then
, only if Mab allows it, and
writes it into the contract. But she almost never allows cutting corners.”

“So you could
make me think anything you wanted.”

Like making
me fall madly in love with him. The moment the thought crosses my mind, I push
it away. After all, if Disney taught me anything, it's that love can't be
forced through magic. Thank you Aladdin.

He raises an
eyebrow. “In theory, yes. In practice, no.” His voice drops. “Consider me
reformed.”

Then he
points his fork at Vanessa’s salad and it bursts into flames, instantly
disintegrating into ash.

“Don’t fool
yourself, Vivienne,” he whispers, almost to himself. “I might have the magic,
but the others…they’ll get into your head way before me.”

Practice is a
disaster.

I don’t know
what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the black eye and three bruises
on my chest from missed passes. So after about twenty minutes of having clubs
thrown at my face and torso, and subsequently missing every single one, Richard
and Vanessa give me three juggling balls. They scoot me over to one corner,
where I can practice without interrupting them and they can keep an eye on me.

“It’s like
trying to keep a beat,” Vanessa says in a voice most people reserve for very
small and very stupid children. “You have to imagine a rhythm, and throw at the
proper time.” She demonstrates by throwing the balls in the air, while saying,
“One, two, three, catch.”

They land in
her hands like magic. I don’t care that she’s probably been doing this longer
than I’ve been alive: I hate her for making it look so easy. “Keep trying,” she
says, and hands them back to me. She stands up to go and I stand with her, but
she puts a hand on my shoulder and pushes me back down. “No,” she says. “Don’t
move around. The balls need to stay in one plane. If you move, you won’t learn
anything.”

Then she goes
back over to Richard — who is, of course, practicing with knives. Eight of
them. They're even on fire. I stay in the corner to fumble around on my own. I
try. Over and over. But I don’t have the coordination, and with every failed
attempt, the image of Mab’s angry face grows in my mind. Then I just start
freaking out that in this case, getting fired might actually mean getting
incinerated. An hour later, Vanessa tells me to head out before I frustrate
myself. A bit too late for that. I drop the balls into their prop trunk and
wander off, sorely tempted to find Kingston and have him
Matrix
me.