Three spotlights were switched on and trained on the ring. A flashily dressed mutant was standing there—he must have darted forward during the blackout. Mr. Dowling waved a hand at the mutant and made a high-pitched squeaking noise.
“Up first,” Kinslow translated, “we have Jaundice Jack, the world’s number one undead juggler.”
“But he’s not undead,” Cat frowned. “He’s a mutant like you.”
“It will all become clear in a minute,” Kinslow promised.
As Cat watched, five zombies were led into the ring by a young mutant, a girl not much older than the students Cat used to teach. She was using a whistle to direct the zombies, who marched along listlessly. The mutants started chanting, “Claudia! Claudia!” The girl smiled and waved to them, then scowled and blew her whistle again, keeping firm control over her charges.
When the zombies were standing still, Mr. Dowling shoved Cat off his lap and stood up abruptly. Cat landed with a startled yelp and glared at the clown as he bounded past her into the ring.
Mr. Dowling was halfway to the zombies when he stopped, pretended to slap his head, then ran back to Cat. He shook a hand at her and made a gibberish noise.
“He wants your sword,” Kinslow said.
“What for?” Cat asked.
“Does it matter?” Kinslow yawned. “Just give him what he wants before he takes it by force.”
Cat felt uneasy, but drew her sword and handed it to the clown. She felt the bulge of her gun as she was removing the sword, and thought about taking it out and opening fire on Mr. Dowling, but Kinslow was watching her intently and she didn’t think she’d get very far.
Mr. Dowling took the sword with a sweeping bow, then bounded over to the zombies. Without slowing down, he swung the sword and chopped off the head of the first zombie, then the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth. It happened so swiftly that the zombies didn’t have time to react.
As Mr. Dowling chopped off the last zombie’s head, he pirouetted wildly, jumped into the air and landed on both knees, throwing away his sword and spreading his arms wide.
“Ta-dah!” Kinslow shouted, and all of the other mutants cheered.
Mr. Dowling hopped to his feet and returned to his throne. Settling down, he patted his lap and Cat reluctantly climbed back up again.
Inside the ring, the bodies of the zombies were staggering around. They didn’t need their heads to survive, but they were directionless without them. The mutants laughed and shouted rude jokes at the undead victims. Cat didn’t feel any pity for the zombies. She was as scornful of them as the mutants were, and laughed as one woman tripped over her own head and fell.
The mutant who had been introduced as Jaundice Jack moved between the zombies as they flailed around. He picked up one head, then another, then a third. Facing the audience, he nodded, and from somewhere beneath the seats a band struck up a low, slow tune.
Jaundice Jack listened to the music for a time, then threw one of the heads up into the air. As it soared high, he tossed up the second head, then the third, and in the twinkling of an eye he was juggling the three severed heads.
“I get it now,” Cat smiled. “He’s not undead, but he juggles the undead.”
Kinslow didn’t bother to comment on that.
Jaundice Jack kicked the heads of the fourth and fifth zombies up from the ground into the air, and added them seamlessly to the mix, so that he was now juggling all five at the same time. It was a difficult procedure, more so than it would have been with inanimate objects, because the jaws of the zombies still worked and they bit at the mutant’s fingers as he juggled.
Jaundice Jack juggled the heads for a couple of minutes, then called for some assistance from the crowd. At his summons, a couple of the babies came forward carrying a large empty ice cream cone. They positioned themselves close to Jaundice Jack and waited. He checked that they were in place, then nodded at the crowd.
“Three! Two! One!” the mutants hooted.
As the countdown concluded, Jaundice Jack launched one of the heads high into the air. The babies ran around comically, tilting the cone this way and that, then caught the head as it fell. The crowd cheered as the babies ran with the grisly cranial scoop towards the side of the ring. Once there, they lobbed the head into the middle of a pack of mutants, who lashed at it with clubs, hammers and axes that they’d been keeping down by their sides. The brain was destroyed and the zombie’s body dropped inside the ring, lifeless forever now.
Jaundice Jack and the babies disposed of the other four heads in a similar way, before leaving the ring to huge applause. Cat was one of those who was clapping with delight. She had chanted along in the countdowns too. She fully approved of killing zombies, and for a while had forgotten the trouble she was in.
“Enjoying it?” Kinslow smirked.
“Yes,” Cat said, her eyes wide and bright.
“Well, hold tight, sweetcake,” he winked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”