Three Slices (13 page)

“Good.” I snatch Catarrh’s teacup and drain the dregs, exposing my throat in the sort of way that tells another predator that it is not now or ever a threat to me.

Catarrh and Quincy watch, sullen and slumped against the back of the bench.

“I didn’t submit,” Quincy snarls, and I set down his brother’s teacup and lean forwards with a ferociously mad smile and the all-too-sharp letter opener I’ve just whipped from my vest. “But I do. I do!” he whimpers.

I relax and nod. “Smart lads. Now, tell me about this other magician.”

They shrug, which tells me all that I need to know.

“The Great Phaedro,” Catarrh says, flapping a hand. “Whoopty-doodley.”

“Not great,” Quincy mutters, still compulsively rubbing the place where I took a divot out of his pimpled cheek with his own cup.

“What’s his specialty?”

Quincy snickers, and Catarrh says, “Cutting girls in half. What’s yours?”

“Cutting magicians in half.”

But the small hairs on my neck rise up. I don’t just cut girls in half; I make them disappear completely.

I
F THIS
caravan is like the other two in which I’ve worked, then no matter how poorly it’s run, things will start to warm up just as the sun is setting. Sure enough, some of the more talented carnivalleros who actually have jobs are practicing, as they should be. There’s a sprightly old man on the tightrope, gray and wrinkled but still wiry as the twisted metal under his slippers. Far below him, on the ground, sit two small girls in outlandishly bright costumes, doing their sums on a chalkboard as they share stale popcorn. A middle-aged lady with horse teeth checks her flea circus with a monocle screwed over her eye, while a young blonde Bludwoman slips into a tailpiece and prepares to launch herself into an unkempt mermaid’s aquarium. A patchy, defanged wolf boy is manacled to a stake in the ground, which he’s trying to dig out with bloody paws.

Further on, I meet a troupe of daimon acrobats and, surprisingly, a strong woman with arms that each weigh more than my entire body. Mademoiselle Caprice dances with a handsome Bludman covered in tattoos, while a voluptuous dwarf lady does her makeup in a cracked mirror. The Freak Tent is at the end, a cluster of fraying pavilions that sets me frowning when I find the entrance unguarded.

It’s bad enough that this Bailey fellow never leaves his wagon, but if he doesn’t have a second-in-command capable of maintaining order, he’s just begging me to snatch this languishing jewel from his crusty grasp. I duck under the striped canvas and nearly run into the light blue daimon I met in the dining wagon as he double-checks his bed of nails.

“Want to have a curl-up?” he says mockingly, and I try not to roll my eyes.

“I know the trick, fool. If you want to impress me, learn to hammer a nail into your eye.”

“That’s impossible,” he says, and I laugh.

“Give me a nail and a hammer then, if you’d care to wager.”

With a rude snort, he picks up his hammer and tosses it in the air, catching it expertly. “What are the terms, then?”

“If I can successfully hammer a nail into my eye, you’ll stop being a prat and accept that I’m most likely going to stick around and one day become your boss.”

“And if you end up in an eye patch?” He hands me a nail, and I grin, because there are a dozen ways he could’ve sabotaged me, and he’s far too stupid to have even tried.

“If I lose, I’ll give you a spell to make your skin brighter.”

Considering a water-colored half-daimon’s skin is his greatest shame, I take a certain joy in watching his eyes take on a holy shine. The brighter the daimon, the better the show, they say, and it’s no wonder this poor faded fellow is so cranky.

“You’re on, mate,” he says.

We shake hands, and I hold the small nail to the corner of my left eye. Three sharp and dramatic knocks, and it’s lodged flawlessly. I hold out my arms and shout, “Tada!”

“That’s impossible,” he says, half in awe and half starving to possess my trick.

“That’s five years in the freak tent,” I say. But I make a little show of prying the nail out because no geek deserves to feel out-geeked in his own domain. Poor lad just needs better training, a firmer hand, and some manners, all of which I’d be glad to give him once I’ve murdered a few people. Tossing the nail to him, I balance the hammer on my nose and say, “Now, what can you tell me about this Phaedro fellow?”

The daimon’s yellow goat eyes go all shifty as he turns the nail over in watery blue hands, still hunting for an illusion that isn’t there. “Doesn’t seem right to tell a gent’s weaknesses to a stranger.”

“My name is Criminy Stain,” I say, holding out a hand. “And I might be strange, but that’s just part of my charm.”

“I’m Laraby.” We shake hands and I return his hammer, and he finally makes his decision to not infuriate someone who clearly knows how to handle weapons.

“Phaedro’s act is mostly illusion. When he cuts a lass in half, it’s the legless lady from the third booth down in the Freak Tent. When he makes someone disappear, it’s a daimon with good control over color-changing. And when a bludbunny pops out of his hat, it’s because he keeps a toothless bludbunny in his hat all the time.”

“So, he has no real magic?”

Laraby shrugs. “Not much, by my count. But he mostly keeps to himself to himself. Seen him among the other Bludmen, from time to time, but never really talked to ’im. Now, about that trick with the nail?”

“Business first. But I do appreciate your help, and so I’ll thank you with this.” I pull a tiny bag out of my pocket, for my jacket has hundreds of such pockets sewn into the lining, and I’ve memorized exactly where everything is and have the proper bits and bobs apportioned for just such an occasion. “Place one grain—only one, mind you—on your tongue, and you’ll find it far easier to hold onto brighter colors, at least for a few hours at a time.”

He takes the small bag, pokes it with a finger the color of melting snow. “Not permanent, then?”

“Sorry, lad,” I say, walking on. “Nothing is.”

F
URTHER EXPLORATION
of the Freak Tent shows me nothing new. I’ve seen all these freaks before and in better form. The dwarf is drunk and abusive, the wolf boy has sores from his manacles, the legless lady wants more than the going rate for being sawn in half, and the two-headed boy simply sits sullenly on a small chaise and stares. Pizzazz is lacking and morale is nonexistent.

I smile. This place wants me, needs me.

Outside again, I turn right to see what the other side of the wagon train holds and find...nothing. Blank spaces and darkness. I guess I know now how Catarrh and Quincy get their dessert—by dragging customers back here and charming them before releasing them, dizzy and confused and down a few pints of blood, back into the well-lit crowds. The wildlife creeps close on the dark side of the train, thanks to the lack of lights. The grasses crunch and whisper as bluddeer and bludbunnies stalk and hop and drool and wait, mere inches from innocent flesh. There’s not even a sign warning the audience not to come this way. This traditional setup is foolish, but so are most things that need changing. It feels good, pissing on the nearest wagon. That’s how we predators claim things, after all.

Back in the light, I find Merissa working a white horse and fuss with my cravat. I haven’t seen a mirror since I left my old home, much less a pitcher of water or a wardrobe wagon. Not that she’s watching me—she has eyes only for the white mare, which has been brushed to an incandescent sheen, her long mane and tail as white as driven snow as she trots majestically in the circle, her big red eyes pinned lovingly to the delicate lady holding the golden rope and a long, flexible whip.

Merissa’s eyes shoot to me, and her brow wrinkles adorably before she looks behind her. Standing there is a comically gothic fellow, slighter than me and wrapped in a long, black cloak more than a little like mine, although the cut of his is out of date and the quality is shabbier. I had my cloak lined in emerald green to match my waistcoat, but this fellow’s cape is in a traditional blood red, as if the world couldn’t otherwise tell that he was a Bludman. In all respects, he is less than me. A little shorter, a little narrower about the shoulders, his slicked-back hair a bland brown, his eyes a muddier blue enhanced by a cool rage that I can feel, even with a girl and a horse between us.

Oh, but this is going to be fun.

“What an enchanting creature,” I say, stepping to Merissa’s side and moving fluidly with her as she trains the horse.

“Don’t flatter me while I’m working,” she mutters, but the corner of her mouth twitches just so.

“I assure you I was speaking of the horse. But where is the one from this morning? Kali?”

Her eyes flick to me, a ripple in an emerald-green pond, and her smile is suddenly genuine. “How did you know it wasn’t her?”

I cross my arms to better broadcast my muscular superiority over the weedy gent standing out of the horse’s orbit. “This one has longer fetlocks and her mane falls mainly to the left. This morning’s Kali was younger, probably still has a hand to grow, and her mane fell to the right.”

“Well played, Stain. You’re correct. This is Kali’s new partner, Fausta.”

“I am curious as to how two bludmares can be coerced into cooperation. It was my understanding that they would battle to the death, should they meet in the wild.”

Her laugh sends ripples of want up my arms, her voice as warm as puddled blood. “They would if they did, sure enough. But I’ve developed a new technique for fostering sisterhood.” She puts the rope and whip in my hands. “Keep her trotting, please.” With a dramatic rip, her skirts fly off and flutter to the ground at Phaedro’s feet. Her legs are revealed, clad in green suede breeches and high, padded boots. She watches the horse for a moment, and I tap the mare’s hip gently with the whip before she can falter. With a nod, Merissa skips, catches Fausta’s mane, and swings up onto her back. The horse doesn’t break her speed, shows no indication that she’s been mastered other than an elegant bowing of her head as if to a greater queen.

“I force a blood exchange,” Merissa says, deftly leaping to her feet to stand on the horse’s back. Her voice doesn’t even break; she might as well be standing on a chaise. “Just a few drops, and they become sisters, intimately connected in body and mind. You see, I’ve picketed Kali where she can watch Fausta go through her paces, and she’s absorbing it like a prodigy with an abacus.”

I glance quickly to the direction in which she’s pointing and see the magnificent young beast tethered to the ground and watching us all, her fine head cocked to the side inquisitively. If you gave the mare a quill and a pair of pince-nez, she might be mistaken for a studious clerk taking notes. Damned if Merissa isn’t right, is all I’m saying.

“I didn’t know horses possessed such keen intelligence.” I use the whip to nudge Fausta back out to the end of the rope before Merissa has to ask.

“Anyone can see that hubris is your sin of choice, Stain.” She grasps the horse’s mane in one hand and lifts one leg high overhead in a ballerina’s flawless arabesque that knocks the breath right out of me.

“Oh, but I don’t believe in sin at all, Merissa.”

The horse snorts on her behalf, and Merissa’s leg gracefully falls. She doesn’t speak again until she’s turned to face me, boot toes curled over the horse’s spine, hands on her hips, Kali’s gallop of no more consequence than the waves lapping at a great ship of conquest.

“Oh, but I do,” she says, nearly a purr.

And for the first time, I consider changing my beliefs.

Our eyes lock, and I realize I’m dizzy and on fire and possibly falling for this tiny virago who can clearly master the most ferocious of beasts. She breaks off the look of longing with a sharp nod and catapults off the horse’s back in a flip that leaves her standing on the ground as the horse slows to a walk and stares at me expectantly.

“Put her picket by Kali’s, would you?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, just picks up her fallen skirts and sashays towards a wagon painted the dark, secret green of her eyes with
Mistress
Merissa and her Mesmerizing Mares
scrolling across the side. The Great Phaedro is gone completely, and I wonder at which point our viciously mischievous conversational foreplay drove him away to snivel somewhere else.

As I’ve nothing better to do, I picket the great beast and pat her withers, for which she gives me an appropriately withering stare.

“Is being ridden by her as lovely as I dream it would be, mate?”

The horse snorts and turns her rump to me.

“Who’d have guessed you were such a genteel soul?” I say.

And I laugh, for the same has been said of me.

5.

I
SPEND
the next few hours wishing for my library of grimoires and two more pocket-honeycombed coats filled with powders and talismans. The only book I brought with me was a family heirloom, and no matter how I hunt and peck, I can’t find anything in it for killing rival magicians. Although I in no way doubt my ability to best this Phaedro, I always prefer to stack several decks in my favor. If nothing else, I’ve got my cloak, which has already proven useful for disposing of inconveniences, even if Phaedro might be a bit too tall to banish completely. I suppose his lower legs wouldn’t cause too much of a ruckus if left behind in a conjuring gone wrong. After all, tall boots look pretty much the same with or without feet still in them.