Chapter Ten

 

 

 

Maya shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Black lace tickled the back of her thighs from the bustle at the bottom of the dark red corset, accented with even more black lace. It cinched tightly across her waist and cupped her breasts to just above their peaks. When she raised her arms, the dusky areolae showed, but that was apparently intentional.

For the first time in Maya’s experience, the circus had set up right outside a city without attaching to a faire, which meant it could commit more fully to its burlesque circus roots. It also meant new costumes like this one, which Maya had fallen in love with in spite of how revealing it was. Just a pair of frilly black panties, what Kitty called bloomers, and the corset that Kitty had tailored to contain her every curve without Maya feeling packed in. This way, she didn’t have a skirt for anyone to look up when she took to the high wire for her first performance.

She had walked the tightrope many times since the traumatic fleeing for her life from the last week, but that didn’t mean she was ready for a performance in front of a bunch of people staring at her crotch and taking bets on whether she was going to fall out of her corset before she fell off the rope.

Bell had assured her that the people who came to these kinds of performances—the ones where Arcanium strictly enforced an all-day over-eighteen policy—were incredibly supportive, especially with newcomers. No one would be immature enough to yell at her to fall, and if they were, well, the local kink communities had their own way to deal with things that didn’t involve bloody death.

Not to mention Maya couldn’t fall unless she wanted to.

That had been a weird experiment, exploring all the ways in which she couldn’t fall, as Bell had given her instructions from under the rope. Bell had told her audiences loved to try to figure out how Arcanium performers managed such feats. Regular attendees—the ones who sometimes followed the circus or always showed up when it was in town—often obsessed over Seth and Lars and their impossible act.

“Now they’ll have a new obsession,” Bell had whispered against her neck after catching her.

The man might have once said he didn’t like to share, but for such a possessive demon, he had a remarkable proclivity for sharing and showing her off. It would be more annoying if she didn’t know it came from a place of pride for her rather than just pride of her.

“You’ll do fine,” Kitty said, checking Maya’s hair one more time and fussing over her a little more than she might fuss over the others. After all, it was Maya’s debut.

“Yeah,” Maya replied. “If the electric violin doesn’t scare me to death again.”

Maya and Kitty stepped out of Tragedy, Comedy and Murphy’s way as they exited the ring. Next, Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail, to prime the room.

Bell came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Just don’t kiss her,” Kitty said. “Lipstick.” Valorie often went on with nothing but gloss because her coloring needed little help, but Kitty had gone for something more stylized and dramatic for Maya, which involved putting enough makeup on her lips and eyes to qualify her as a clown. It made Maya look almost nothing like herself. It was amazing.

Kitty needn’t have worried, though. Bell still hadn’t kissed her any closer than her neck since the Ringmaster had whipped her the first time. Maya was ashamed to say that her mouth hungered for him. He gave her the rest of his body to play with, and vice versa, but it wasn’t the same, human or jinn.

And no kissing was just the tip of the phallic iceberg, because he still wasn’t letting her come either. A whole week in a sex-demon-charged circus, Bell would paint her ass black and blue and play with the needles and the razors in the places the costume covered and tease her mercilessly with his tongue and his cock…but he would always stop before letting her come. It was a damn good thing Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail hadn’t fed this week, or else it would have gone from incredibly frustrating to actual torture on level with the Ringmaster’s sessions.

Cuffs or no cuffs, she couldn’t complain, because punishment was still his to give. If he chose to withhold the devastating heat of his kisses or keep her in a constant low hum of arousal—stimulated to an almost painful intensity just by his presence and a gentle touch—she could protest, but that protest would get her nowhere.

She leaned against his shoulder anyway.

“Are you ready?” he murmured. He licked one of the mostly healed marks he had made on her neck. The power of the incubus and succubus now held sway.

“No,” Maya replied.

“It is impossible for you to fail,” Bell said.

“Stage fright doesn’t listen to reason.”

“I’ll have a drink back here for you when you finish,” Bell said. “Something stronger than ale.”

“Now you’re speaking my language. Don’t suppose I can have it before?”

Bell turned her head so that she could see his raised eyebrow.

“No, I guess that wouldn’t be wise,” Maya answered for him.

“I’d recommend that you pretend they’re one of your old classes, but I think it might mortify you more if you thought any of your students would see you,” Bell said, grinning against her ear.

“If they even recognized me. But thank you. Now there’s no way I’m going to wonder if I’m going to scar one of my students for life one of these days.”

“Just trying to help,” Bell said.

Lily sauntered past them, followed by Christina, walking awkwardly but determinedly without her legs. Maya stopped Lily for a moment so that she could scratch the tiger along her spine. Lily swung her head around, her eyes narrowing with pleasure. Then Maya waved after her and Christina, silently wishing them luck. Christina nodded it back at her.

After the Ringmaster finished introducing the oddities to the audience, which was filled to the brim all the way around the three-quarter circle, Maya took a deep breath. Seth and Lars were on the catwalk waiting for their blue light. But Maya’s electric violin music began, and the light in the ring went carnival red.

The Ringmaster’s voice caressed through the darkness. “Next, a new addition to Arcanium, and making her high wire debut… A beautifully plumaged rare bird as comfortable in the air as you are on the ground, she was raised in a now demolished skyscraper and is always pursuing her next greatest high. Put your hands together for the lovely, scarlet Mistress Maya.”

Bell gently pushed her right through the curtain almost before she was ready, but Maya gathered herself together, spread her arms and curtsied to a swell of applause. She thought she heard a few moans and groans and sighs leftover from Lady Sasha’s and Lord Mikhail’s presence, but from where she stood, the audience had gone dark. There was only her red-light district world and the ladder to the platform.

To the rising crescendo of the music, Maya climbed to the platform and poised on the edge, hands above her head as though she were about to take a dive, which presented her breasts to the men and women who loved them. She adjusted her feet inside her leather slippers with the gripping soles and separated toes, but in the end those weren’t so much to keep her on the rope as they were to support her feet.

Maya began by flipping onto the rope with a sideways round-off. She landed on her feet and used the momentum to grab the rope with her hands and stand on them, toes pointed to the sky. Exclamations of amazement interspersed with applause as she began to walk the rope on her hands. Her arms shook as she focused on balance and form.

Bell had given her knowledge of technique as well as the strength and grace that came from a lifetime of performing these kinds of acts. But it would take longer than a week for Maya to trust that with which Bell had imbued her in a matter of seconds.

When she reached the middle of the rope, Maya did a backbend forward and rose up on her feet to another round of applause.

Remember to smile, Maya reminded herself. She flashed one as she adjusted her breasts so they were more adequately covered after having been under the influence of gravity for a few upside-down minutes. There was a ripple of laughter.

Maya reached into her bodice and pulled out a trio of metal rings. Sweat beaded on her forehead, but she kept smiling. To the rhythm of the music, Maya threw them into the air one by one and juggled as she walked back and forth on the wire, sometimes switching up the technique to keep it exciting. Juggling was another skill Bell had given her, apparently requisite for all Arcanium cast members.

She caught two of the rings then threw the last one much higher, almost all the way into the catwalk. Maya crouched then used the tension of the wire and her own strength and new flexibility to do a full flip backward. The audience sucked the air out of the room with their nervous gasps, but she stuck the landing and snatched the last ring out of the air. Smiling broadly, she hooked the rings onto her wrist and spread her arms to curtsy on the wire.

The rings slipped off over the cuffs and fell to the ground, clattering violently. Maya wobbled, her eyes going wide, and when she bowed to the western section of the audience, she pitched straight forward as though she was going to belly flop onto the ground.

And she stopped short in the air, perfectly horizontal and parallel to the ground, as though she had collapsed into an invisible cushion, Maya still kept her toes curved around the rope, but in a way that would hardly have kept her there.

With exaggerated surprise reminiscent of Tragedy, Maya slowly willed herself upright again, her body straight as a board, to the excited, perplexed and delighted murmurs of the audience, while the electric violin music rose to its climax.

Then she ran across the wire and cartwheeled onto the other platform before making her final bow. She and Bell would think of other things to add to the act in time, but this was enough for her first time, at least to keep her nerves from giving out.

Maya had never thought she’d enjoy audience acclaim, but she panted in the red spotlight, and applause hit her like bursts of cool air on her heated skin. One of the trapeze swings lowered in front of her, and she climbed onto it. As she waved goodnight, she ascended into the heavens to the conch roar of the audience clapping and whistling.

Seth and Lars helped her off her trapeze while golems moved her high wire equipment to the side to make room for Seth and Lars’ aerial act. Lars smiled and slapped her shoulder lightly in congratulations. Maya grinned like a lunatic and thought about slapping his ass right back. For these kinds of performances, when the cast wore leather, they went all the way to buffed and shining black that hugged the finely formed flanks on both men, not to mention the studded straps over their chests. It wasn’t just fucking hot because it was summer.

The next greatest high, indeed. Sure, the performance had been short, but she’d like to see anyone else in the audience do it.

As promised, Bell was waiting for her backstage with a cold glass of scotch on the rocks. Not only that, but she got an eyeful of him in his own pair of leather pants. They did absolutely nothing to conceal a single attribute or asset.

But she wasn’t going to let that distract her. Too much. “Thank Dionysus,” Maya said. She took two deep swallows, relishing the head rush and spread of warmth in her stomach.

“You did splendidly,” Bell murmured, leading her away from the curtain. “You don’t have to stay for the rest if you’d like some air.”

“No, I’m good with the nectar of the gods and post-performance endorphins,” Maya replied.

“Seth and Lars leave immediately after. You have no obligation.”

“I like it in here,” Maya said.

A return of Bell’s unreadable smile. He traced the line of her jaw with his thumb.

“We’ve set up a tent for the Kinksters’ dinner and meeting. They plan to have some demonstrations, instruction, suggestions.” He wrapped his hands around her cuffed wrists to pull her closer, the glint in his eyes playful. “Perhaps they’ll have a seminar about Masters and slaves, new things we might try.”

“Like, say, actually letting me finish?” Maya said.

He dipped down to kiss her then stopped himself. “Oh. Lipstick.” His grin broadened like the demon he was.

“You’re killing me here, Bell,” Maya said. She leaned her forehead on his chin. “The way it’s escalating, soon you’re not going to even touch me. You’ll convince Lady Sasha and Lord Mikhail to fuck each other right in front of us, then you’ll jerk off on me and you three will walk away and just leave me there with a huge ladyboner and no way to get rid of it. Because you would totally do that to me at this point.”

“You’re crude when you’re tipsy,” Bell said, coughing against his laughter.

“I am. I am that,” Maya agreed. “I think being flush with success doesn’t help.”

“I will never stop touching you,” Bell murmured. He fluttered his fingertips over the soft curve of her breasts where they were exposed above the satin and lace corset.

“I hope you don’t mind if I change out of this for the convention thing,” Maya said. “It’s…sexy, but the bustle wasn’t really made for sitting down.”

“Who said anything about my allowing you to sit?” Bell asked.

When Maya did a double take, Bell chuckled. “Joking, Maya. Just make sure to change into something appropriate for the venue.”

Maya already had an idea of what ‘appropriate for the venue’ looked like.

Considering her selection of Ren Faire costumes and the new burlesque additions, plus a few kink-inspired numbers, Maya thought ‘appropriate for the venue’ wouldn’t be much of an issue.

The problem, she mused as she headed back to the RV after the show’s conclusion, was finding clothes appropriate for things like lounging on a couch or walking around the circus during the week or just plain practicing. It would be nice to have some cotton leggings and a supportive sports bra at least. Unlike Valorie, Maya didn’t have a selection of normal clothing, just the T-shirt she sometimes wore at night.

By the time Maya had finished changing, she was officially buzzed from the scotch. Because of Bell’s magic, she was far more aware of her center than she’d ever been—that strong, firm place somewhere between the flaring wings of her pelvis—so she didn’t weave much as she stepped out of her RV in the red leather dress, with its plunging neckline and corset ties. Maya wasn’t sure what to do with the black fetishwear yet, and she at least knew which end was up in the red leather.

It was the little victories. And sometimes it was the big, honking victories. Like doing a backflip on a freaking tightrope. Maya supposed she’d get over that one day, but today was not that day.

As Maya made her way back to the convention tent—which had been set up next to the big top during the show by quiet, dutiful golems—she heard something on the other side of the caravan. At first, she was just going to ignore it. From the quality of the cry, it could have been any of the female cast who happened to be in a trailer with an open window.

Then she heard it again, coupled with the air-stealing sound of a kicker punting a football and followed by a masculine groan…and not in a good way.

Maya whipped her head around, looking for other people, maybe one of the demons—they of the sharp teeth and preternatural strength.

She couldn’t find anyone.

The shouting took on a sense of urgency. Maya ran toward it, keeping herself on path by careening against trailers and RVs like a ball in a pinball machine. It was harder to keep balance while buzzed at such a speed.

What she saw almost literally made her blood run cold. Her forehead and neck broke out in cold sweat that would have been refreshing in the heat if not for the fear.

Four strangers. Three guys, one girl. All four were in shorts and tees, so they probably weren’t with the kink group. Besides, the kink group was supposed to be congregating in the dinner tent right now.

To the side, Troy gasped for breath, doubled over on his hands and knees and gulping at air that wasn’t going in. One of the guys, maybe a college football player by the breadth of his shoulders, stood near him in a wide stance with one foot back. The other two guys held Christina up between them, one of them covering her mouth.

“Come on, guys. This isn’t funny. This isn’t okay,” the girl said.

“Cool it, Melanie,” said one of the guys holding Christina. He had strawberry blond hair that fringed over his ears. “It’s just some fun.”

“It’s not fun. It’s sick. Can we just go?” Melanie said. She swayed where she stood as though keeping her balance on a merry-go-round, which told Maya she’d probably imbibed one ale too many this evening.

“Hell no. I mean, look at her. What’s she going to do?” the other guy holding Christina replied. He was a slender but athletic-looking African-American. “Her freak prince certainly isn’t going to stop us. Looks scary, but he’s just a pansy ass faggot, isn’t he? All those types are.”

“Stop this, Shawn,” Melanie shouted at the football player by Troy.

“Not after the way he looked at me,” Shawn said, pulling back his foot to kick Troy again before the Tattooed Man could catch his breath.

Maya caught the sneaker and yanked Shawn’s foot back. The guy pinwheeled and flipped forward onto his face. Maya had seen Murphy do a similar faceplant, but she was pretty sure Murphy was skilled enough that it only looked like it hurt.

If there was any justice in the world, Shawn’s face now hurt a lot.

“What the fuck, bitch?” the African-American guy said.

“I could say the same,” Maya said. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“The chick was into it,” the reddish-blond guy said. “The guy attacked us, trying to hurt her. I think he’s crazy.”

Christina shook her head behind the African-American guy’s hand, whining her scream as well as she could. Melanie rubbed her forehead, looking ill.

“Put her down right now,” Maya said.

“Why? You want a piece, too, sweetheart? Yeah, I bet you’re into that. In that get-up, you’re going to that group, aren’t you?” the reddish-blond guy asked.

“What’s a little girl like you going to do about it?” the African-American guy added, laughing.

The bigger jock, Shawn, recovered from his fall and grabbed her ankle. She smashed her other heel into his scraped cheek, narrowly missing his nose. He let go and rolled over.

“Assault! That’s assault!” Melanie screamed. She stumbled down to hold her boyfriend’s head.

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Maya asked. She put an arm around Troy’s waist to help him straighten up.

Troy eased back to his feet, shaky and panting and holding his stomach.

“As far as what I’m going to do about it…to start with, I don’t have anything to lose,” Maya said. She led Troy over to a trailer tire, where he could lean and half-sit to get his strength back.

“I can think of a few things,” Strawberry Blond said. He tilted his head to check out Maya’s ass. Then he shoved Christina over to the African-American guy.

Christina wriggled like a live eel, but she didn’t have the benefit of being as slippery as one, and while she could pack some punch behind the narrow stumps where her arms and legs used to be, it wasn’t nearly enough to deter the guy holding her.

“As soon as you can go, go,” Maya muttered to Troy. “Get others.”

“Hey, you look kind of familiar,” Strawberry Blond said. “Do I know you?”

“Well, she’s the tightrope chick, isn’t she?” the African-American guy replied.

“No shit, fuckface. I’m not fucking blind. Hey, you’re… I can’t remember your name, but you’re Derrick’s ex, right?”

Maya blinked. In the split second of the blink, she recalled a family reunion picture. “You’re Derrick’s cousin. Cameron. Canton.”

“Cameron,” he said. “You hear what happened to Derrick?”

“No,” Maya said, keeping her expression neutral. “What happened?”

“Boy had an accident. Been holed up in the hospital hopped up on morphine. His parents are freaked, but he can’t tell them what happened. Course, his mouth’s wired shut ’cause he broke his jaw too. Weirdest thing in the world.”

“Sounds awful,” Maya said. She had to force the words out through the tightening hole of her throat. Behind her, rapid footsteps faded. She prayed Troy would come back quickly.

“What a pussy,” Cameron said.

The African-American guy laughed, his hand working between Christina’s upper thighs. Maya tensed.

“He’s more man than the three here put together,” Maya said.

“Yeah, I remember Derrick telling me you were a real nag,” Cameron said, slowly advancing. He was a head and a half taller than her. Maybe in the past, that would have been more frightening. “He’d text all the time and tell me and the guys what a stupid bitch you were, how much he wanted to break it off. Best day of his life when he did. Said he was finally free. We all thought it was a hoot when he actually got you fired. I guess you had to join the circus after that.”

He reached out to touch her breasts, but Maya knocked his wrists to the sides and took a step back. Her spine trembled like humming electrical wire.

“Oh, yeah, feisty. I remember that too,” Cameron said with a juvenile grin on his boy-child face.

He sidled closer, and Maya took another step back. She didn’t plan to take another one.

“Derrick used to tell us everything the two of you did. Said the only reason he stayed so long was because even though you were a bitch and a buzzkill almost all the time, you were a beast in the sack. I’m looking forward to finding out for myself if that’s true.”

He hesitated when she didn’t retreat from him again.

“Cameron, John, let’s just go,” Melanie said.

“Shut up, you stupid cunt. I want to see that bitch pay,” Shawn said, muffled by the hand covering his mouth. “Rip her tits right off.”

“Oh God,” Melanie murmured, stumbling away as she realized what was going to happen. She staggered behind some of the trailers. Maya heard her fall.

Wonderful. What a bunch of charming people.

“You touch me or Christina, you’ll wish you were dead,” Maya said quietly.

“Scary, coming from a girl like you and a half chick like this one,” John said. He dropped Christina and put a foot on her back to hold her down as he undid his shorts.

“You should be scared. Like I said, I’ve got nothing to lose,” Maya said. “After your dear cousin left me stranded miles from home in lieu of dumping me like a man, I was abducted, held prisoner. You can’t imagine the pain. I’ve been hit with a bullwhip over a hundred times, been made a slave, and you think a pencil dick like you is going to do anything to me that’s worse than that?”

Maya neglected to mention that most of those things had been voluntary. The principle still applied. Men weren’t going to scare her after she’d consorted with demons—especially not insecure asshole kiddie-sociopaths like Cameron, John or Shawn.

Like Derrick—the man she’d tortured herself over after he’d gotten exactly what he’d deserved, not that he’d ever learn the lesson that Maya had.

Which was that, like these men here now, he was a shriveled radish of a prick barely worth a bite, and Maya had wasted more than enough time on that loser. Almost three-and-a-half years. More, if she counted the Derrick Juniors and Derrick Lites and Derrick Classics she’d dated before him. Derrick had just been the peak of a bad mountain she’d been climbing all her life.

It was time she rappelled her ass down that cliff and found herself a better view.

Maya didn’t wait for Cameron to come after her. She leveled a solid kick up between his legs to smash her toes into his family treasure chest—jewels, scepter and all. She hoped she kicked so hard, Derrick could feel it hundreds of miles away.

Cameron collapsed like a bag of dismembered parts, his teeth bared and the cords of his neck distended. She started to kick him in the nose, but John grabbed Christina by her hair in his left hand and dragged her shrieking with him as he ran over and punched Maya in the face.

The Ringmaster’s lash had hurt more than a punch to her cheekbone, but she’d never been punched before, and this guy clearly worked out. The blow was like the blinding burst of a nuclear bomb behind her skull. Nothing in her body worked. Next thing she knew, she was on her side next to Cameron.

“Maya!” Christina screamed.

Cameron got himself together before Maya did, in spite of the way pain twisted his face. Now he really looked a lot like Derrick, if Derrick had highlights. Maya wondered how she hadn’t seen it earlier.

He grabbed Maya and rolled over her, pinning her down with her legs on either side of him so she couldn’t attack his sore balls again.

“You’re going to spend the next two hours apologizing to my bits for that,” Cameron wheezed. “I swear to God.”

He punched her in the same place as John. She felt like that eyeball was going to explode any moment and ooze blood and vitreous humor from beneath the puffed eyelid like strawberry jelly.

Maya’s mouth dropped open in pain. Cameron took the opportunity to shove his crotch against hers, riding her skirt up farther, as he stuck three fingers into her mouth to gag her and fuck it at the same time.

Maya was afraid, her panic rising like water in a closed room. But she’d been more afraid before, and this time she was also very, very angry.

Just as he yanked at the ties holding her dress together, Maya bit down as hard as she could. Her teeth jarred against bone, her tongue stung where she hadn’t been able to avoid biting herself, and her jaw ached. The important thing was the metallic, bitter, meaty liquid that filled her mouth. She sputtered and coughed Cameron’s blood out as he shouted, holding his bloody hand, his mouth a cartoonish gash.

Maya grabbed her thigh and pulled it back against her chest. She didn’t have Valorie’s flexibility, but she had some, and she was able to get her foot back in front of Cameron. Then she let herself go like a slingshot, shoving her heel against Cameron’s chin and snapping his head back.

“Fugging bish,” Cameron snarled. His teeth were stained where he had bitten the tip of his tongue off. “I’m gonna gill you.”

A haze of red blazed at the edge of her vision, heat hotter than the summer evening burning from the inside like black flame.

She launched herself at Cameron, digging her nails into his face so deeply that one of them broke to the quick. The more she saw of him and the blurrier her vision got in her bad eye, the more he looked exactly like Derrick and the more she wanted to destroy him.

“Crazy—” Cameron managed to get out as he tried to shield himself with his arms. Maya bit into his forearm. Again, a bitter draft of his blood burst in her mouth. She spat it in his face.

“You have no idea,” Maya said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

At that moment, something moved out of the corner of her eye, dark in the fiery glare of sunset. And behind her, a bellow.

Bear arms engulfed her from behind, yanking her to her feet and ripping at her dress until her breasts spilled out. Shawn squeezed her so hard air was forced out of her lungs, and though she scrabbled at his arms, he didn’t let go. John had left Christina on the ground—still covered with her leotard, thank goodness—to come after Maya and grab her flailing legs. Christina quickly got her wits about her and hurried like an insect under one of the trailers, her belly trailing the ground. Her pale face was moonlike, her eyes glittering in terror as she watched the three men overpower Maya.

Maya was ready to unleash holy hell. Whatever they did to her, whatever nightmare they put her through, whatever they had been planning to do to Christina and Troy, she would pay it back to them tenfold, especially the half-ginger twerp with blood on his shirt getting to his feet and fumbling with the button on his pants.

Suddenly, John reeled back, clutching his neck where braided black leather had wrapped around him with a merciless snap, a whip that led directly to a wickedly gleeful Ringmaster.

Cameron’s eyes went wide, and he jerked around.

Then Shawn let her go too. Maya dropped to the ground, teetering on the balls of her feet before regaining her balance.

She was greeted by the attractive sight of Shawn being throttled by an unmasked Ciarán, his lips pulled away from his prehistoric teeth. Misha had two swords pointed directly at Cameron’s throat and stomach.

Lennon furiously shoved Melanie, her makeup smeared down her cheeks with tears, into the surrounding circle next to Cameron. And there were more circus folk emerging from the shadows and from behind trailers, almost the full cast, all of them grim.

“You have made a grave error, gentlemen,” the Ringmaster said.

“Monumental. On so many levels,” Valorie said, leaning nonchalantly on the trailer next to Christina, who crawled out from underneath.

Troy lifted Christina from the ground and held her against him with ropy arms that appeared reluctant to ever let her go again.

“You didn’t just threaten the cast of his circus,” Misha said, “which would have earned you bad enough punishment. I should know. But you attacked the boss’s woman. That’s got to be worth three additional decades of hell in his book.”

“At least,” Bell said, stepping into the dying light, stony as a harbinger of apocalypse. And behind him, like the other three horsemen, came the clowns. For their new audience, a pattern of black greasepaint followed the seam of their actual mouths up to near their ears, creating the illusion that their mouths had been sewn shut. Creepy enough as makeup. Even creepier because Maya knew it wasn’t just makeup. She wondered if the four trapped outsiders would find that out first-hand.

She thought she wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it. In fact, Maya believed she was going to sleep very well tonight indeed.

Bell held out his hand, beckoning her to him. Maya stepped between Cameron and Melanie to take it.

“Which stain did this to you?” he asked evenly, feather gentle as he touched the swelling over her cheekbone.

“John and Cameron,” Maya said, nodding to both of them.

“And the one choking you?” Bell asked.

“Shawn.”

“The blood?” he asked. He wiped some of it off her lip.

“Most of it isn’t mine,” Maya replied.

“That’s my Maya,” Bell whispered. “Did any of them touch you?”

“I did my own damage,” Maya said. She lowered her eyes.

“And now I intend to do mine,” Bell said, directing his radioactive gaze at Cameron. “Sit down, Maya. I have business to attend to. The anger will dissipate. Fear will make a late entrance.”

She grabbed Bell’s arm before he could pass her. “I’d like to help,” Maya said.

Bell encircled her leather cuffs, raising her hands to kiss her knuckles. Then he turned them over to salute her wrists just below the cuffs. Heat smoother than the heat of anger, like another good swallow of scotch, sluiced down her spine and curled in a wave within her abdomen.

“You have already helped more than I could have ever hoped,” Bell said. “Your mind whispers to me once more. Things have changed. Are you finally open to reward, Maya?”

Maya nodded.

“Then you shall have your reward for protecting my people, pleasure that only jinn can provide to a woman,” Bell promised. “But I am tasked with protecting my people…and doling out retribution if anyone dares to touch them with malice in their hearts. Sit, Maya. It’s the greatest show not just in this life but in the next.”

As soon as Maya lowered herself to a patch of grass, Bell’s prediction came true. The reality of what had almost happened practically knocked her over, and she gasped, clutching at her chest. Her legs, arms and hands twitched with the tail end of adrenaline.

Chiding voices repeated like madness in her head, asking her why she had done it, why she hadn’t run for help and instead engaged with them, knowing she was outweighed, outnumbered, outmatched, and they had almost… What had she hoped to prove?

All she had was a black eye, a sore tongue, a thick neck and a torn costume—which she now pulled together over her bare breasts more out of social habit than modesty, since the cast didn’t care. And she should count herself lucky.

Whatever she had hoped to prove, maybe she’d proved it to herself. Like the fact she was mental.

The clowns trailed Bell, their black and glowing eyes glinting with the same glee as the Ringmaster, who had stepped on the thong of the whip to force John to his hands and knees. Seemed they all loved a good judgment day.

Bell unwrapped the whip from John’s neck with a twirl of his finger. Then he signaled Misha to stand down with an appreciative nod and indicated that Ciarán should let Shawn go as well. Shawn started to run, but Bell backhanded him with a sound like a close lightning crack. Shawn collided with a trailer and collapsed once more.

“None of you are going anywhere,” Bell said, pointing at all four in warning. “You will regret what you have already done. I am sure I or one of my colleagues would dearly love to pay you back for any additional transgressions you commit.”

“You can smell the alcohol on her breath,” Cameron said stridently. “I’m telling you, man, she came on to me and then went apeshit.”

“You,” Bell said, facing Cameron with utter contempt. “You will stay silent until I come to you, pig. I am saving your soul for last. Ridam be haykalet.”

Bell spit on Cameron’s face. Cameron’s lips abruptly sealed, becoming a single fleshy, lumpy line. Cameron went dead white beneath his freckles. He clawed at his monolip, but he only managed to dig additional grooves in his face to join the ones Maya had made.

“Holy shit,” John whispered, suddenly shaking like a terrified puppy. “Holy shit. What are you, you bastard? What did you do?”

“I am no one to trifle with,” Bell said. He crouched down to look John in the eye. “Do you wish to trifle with me?”

John shook his head.

Bell moved in front of the woman, who was still leaking tears and whimpering, but she seemed scared sober.

“You. Coward.” Bell nudged her cheek with his knee. “You did nothing, which is both your sin and your salvation. I’m going to tell you to wish to be of service to the circus to make up for your mistake, and you are going to do so. Now.”

Melanie nodded quickly. Her head looked like it was going to nod right off her shoulders.

“Say it.”

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t know what they were going to do. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not interested in your apologies, woman,” Bell said. “I want your wish. This is your last chance. Say it.”

“Yes!” Melanie cried. “Yes, I wish it.”

“Very well,” Bell replied. “I’ve been wanting to add a few new oddities to the line.”

He snapped his fingers. This time it was her boyfriend’s turn to mutter “Oh God” in horror.

Melanie’s short denim shorts ripped to pieces as her hips blossomed out in a series of gleaming scales and a frill. Bare muscle, bone and vessels erupted from the inside of her legs. Melanie flopped to the ground, screaming bloody murder before skin and scales covered the exposed flesh.

Her ankles fused together, and a membrane caul covered her feet. The bones in her toes shot out, the strong membrane stretching to join it and form fins.

Her screaming abruptly stopped. Melanie gouged at her throat in the same way Cameron had scratched at his mouth, but nothing came out except fishlike gasps. Her mouth gaped mutely as six lines ripped themselves through the sides of her neck, like closed vents. She didn’t need the gills in the open air.

There were other little changes that she probably wasn’t aware of, panicked and without a mirror as she was. She blinked twice now, once with her human eyelids and another with a clear lid that presumably would help her see underwater. Her eye sockets shifted and widened for her new, eerily large eyes, with their dull, watery, huge pupils. Her fingers were still dexterous, but the webbing between them was more pronounced, and the nails were pointed and grooved. Her human teeth dropped out of her gaping mouth onto the ground, replaced by sharp, conical piranha teeth poking through, uneven in the gums.

Lennon trilled in delight, bending down to pick up the teeth and admire the terrified aquatic beauty. Bell slapped his wrist and his cheek lightly, and Lennon scurried back again.

“You’ll get your leftovers,” Bell told him, “after I’m finished with the meal.”

“Wow, that’s flattering,” Valorie said.

Bell narrowed his eyes.

Valorie raised her hands defensively. “God, I was just kidding.”

Bell crouched down again and lifted Melanie’s head. “I’m sure you’ll forgive me for taking your speech, at least until I lose the urge to commit graver punishment upon your heads should you utter another wish for a while. I am also at heart a businessman, and it’s just good business to keep you from singing. We already have a pair of sex demons in the cast. We don’t need a siren casting her spell.”

“Fuck, man. You’re crazy. You’re crazy!” John yelled.

“Not crazy. Determined,” Bell replied, rising up to stare down his nose at the three men on their knees. “Remove the girl. You’ll find her aquarium trailer on the other side. Lennon, Valorie, please make sure she feels at home. Ciarán…”

Ciarán picked Melanie up, slow and strong. Lennon played with her tail excitedly as they left.

Valorie sighed and glared with exasperation at Bell, but she went with the two demons anyway.

“What’d you do? That’s impossible. Imposs― What did you do?” Shawn stammered. His jock face was bright red under his crew cut. He trembled like a child.

“For the rest of you, you have a choice. You can try your luck with a wish, although you probably won’t be able to wish again for a good long while. I hold a grudge, my friends, and you have incurred my displeasure. If you do not want to risk a wish, well…” Bell gestured to the clowns behind him. “My clowns are hungry, as you can see. They haven’t had a child in over a week. They’ll take whatever they can get in their mouths.”

The three clowns split their mouths open with knuckle-cracking rips, exposing the rows of needle-lethal dentition within.

All three men jerked away. Tragedy grinned wildly, the happiest that Maya had ever seen her. Her long tongue lolled out of her mouth, dripping with saliva. Behind her, the other two clowns panted with the promise of a feast, but they were more restrained.

“Let’s start with you. Shawn.” Bell nudged the jock with his toe. “You’ve seen a lot of terrible things today, many of them perpetrated by you, although a self-absorbed worm such as yourself does not yet understand that. Do you wish for a better understanding? Do you wish to really see what you’ve done?”

“What the fuck are you, man?” John asked.

“Wait your turn, pig,” Bell snarled, whirling around and lifting John off the ground by his neck. “Unless you want me to silence you the same as your friend here.”

John shook his head, unable to move Bell’s hand as he clawed at Bell’s fingers.

Bell threw him against a trailer with a crash. John fell to the ground next to Shawn, coughing.

“You, boy,” Bell snapped at Shawn. “Do you wish for a little illumination, to really see what you’ve done?”

“Wish?” Shawn said. “Fuck, man, I just wish you’d let me go. Please, man, we’ll never come back. We won’t tell anyone what happened. Just let us go.”

“Let you go?” Bell said, smiling coldly. “I can work with that. I can let you go from your previous life. I can set you free from your ignorance, teach you to see the truth of things every time you look in the mirror. Welcome to Arcanium.”

Bellowing, Shawn brought his hands to his face as blood spilled over his cheeks. Bones cracked—such a familiar sound and one that made Maya shudder and her stomach twist.

His nose broke and hooked to make room for the gap that split open on the bridge between his eyes. When Shawn pulled his hands away again, shouting blindly at the sky, his eyes had completely dissolved. The sockets where they had been merged in the center to make a single cavernous opening. A deflated condom of flesh inside suddenly inflated, bulged and became a single eye twice as big as a golf ball.

His screams didn’t end like Melanie’s, because Bell didn’t take his voice box. Instead, Bell cut off half of his tongue.

Maya’s breathing was shallow and fast, her upper lip slick with sweat, but this time, Maya didn’t think she was terrified. Instead, she thought she might actually be…excited.

This time, chaos was working for her.

“Your turn,” Bell said, turning to John. “Do you want things over quick and bloody, or do you want to try your luck with a wish? If you are wise, you will wish for what I tell you. It’s your best chance for mercy…eventually.”

“You’re some kind of wizard or something, aren’t you?” John said.

“Your kind knows nothing of ours anymore,” Bell said. “Do not try to understand what I am. You’ll have lifetimes to observe our ways and recognize the folly of your own.”

“No. No, no, no, you’re crazy,” John said, shaking his head. “This is crazy. I’m drunk. This is a dream, just a dream. None of this is actually happening.”

“Then what do you stand to lose from a wish?” Bell asked. “Make your choice. My patience wears thin, and I am sorely tempted to let Maya and Christina watch as the clowns eat your intestines like sausage links. Not to mention other pieces you’d do better without.”

The clowns tilted their heads, chittering like foxes. Tragedy rocked back and forth like a demented punk doll. Murphy slavered and gave a low, canine growl.

“I’ll wish,” John said, nodding frantically. “Christ, yes, I’ll wish.”

“Let’s make this simple. Wish to do whatever this circus needs, and you might incur some goodwill,” Bell said. “Wish your life to me or feed your death to them.”

“Shit.” John glanced over at Cameron, who had drawn his eyebrows together over his nose, so scared that he was furious. Cameron couldn’t allow himself to admit he was scared, that these damn circus folks had made him scared. Maya couldn’t read minds like Bell, but she knew Derrick, and as far as she was concerned, all the apples from that family tree had worms in them.

“Don’t look at your friend,” Bell said. “He’s the reason you have to make this decision, isn’t he?”

“Shit. Yeah, I’ll wish,” John said.

“Then say it.”

Comedy started forward.

“Fine, fine, I wish to do whatever the circus needs or whatever you just said,” John said, recoiling. “Just please don’t kill me!”

Bell raised his hand to stop Comedy from attacking. Comedy whined, but he obeyed.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Bell said. “It’s been years since we’d had a fire-eater, and that should take care of keeping you quiet.”

“Shit,” John said, wincing away from Bell’s hand as he raised his palm over John.

John fell to the ground near where Shawn was still rolling around trying to understand what had happened to him and recovering from the bone-deep pain. John, however, shook with seizure. Then even Maya could feel the heat emanating from John in waves like sun off desert concrete. As he shouted, first smoke then fire poured out of his mouth. Now the heat coming off him started to smell like a luau.

“It’ll stop burning if you close your mouth,” Bell said quietly, but his voice cut through John’s screaming.

John clamped his mouth shut and covered it with his hands.

“You’ll only be able to manage a liquid diet until I’m satisfied with your repentance,” Bell said. “You and your one-eyed friend can share a trailer for now. I hope you don’t snore. Please show them out, Bale, Misha.”

Bale yanked Shawn to his feet, and John got up when Misha pointed his swords at him.

“Now, time for the dog-fucked pig,” Bell said, turning finally to Cameron. “Misha, before you leave…” Bell summoned a small, curved hunting knife out of Misha’s bag. “Thank you. Remind me to show my gratitude properly in the near future.”

Misha’s slight smile made his sickly face look ten times better. “Sure, boss.”

Bell grabbed Cameron by the hair and yanked his head back. Bell put the knife against his puffy monolip and sank the blade through, splitting the lips once again as Cameron shouted, each shout louder than the last as more of his mouth was torn open. Bell could have opened Cameron’s mouth as easily as he’d closed it, but Maya had no problem with his surgical instrument of choice.

“You!” Cameron screamed. He lunged after Maya, who had stretched out her legs in the grass to lean back and enjoy the view. “You did this! This is your fault!”

The crack of the Ringmaster’s whip made Maya rub her thighs together. She hadn’t even flinched.

The Ringmaster jerked the whip, dragging Cameron back to Bell’s feet.

“Kiram too roohet,” Bell said through clenched teeth, the angriest Maya had ever seen him. Even when he was furious, he rarely showed it, which meant that Cameron had pushed every one of Bell’s buttons, including the big red one no one was ever supposed to push. “Kiram too roohe aval va akharet. You are barely worth the filth on my boot up your ass. Shoot of the same tree as my enemy, the last thing I want is you in my circus for a lifetime or two. I should just throw you to the clowns and forbid you the opportunity to wish, but the prospect of a more inventive end tempts me. Will you make a wish? Shoorbakht beshei.”

“What the fug are you saying, man?” Cameron asked.

“If I wanted you to know, I would speak it in your native tongue, you rotting elephant afterbirth,” Bell said.

“You wan a wish, man?” Cameron said. He bared his teeth as the Ringmaster yanked at him again. “Fine. I wish you and that crazy bish”—Cameron glared at Maya—“would go fug yourselves.”

“Granted. Hardly a challenge,” Bell said, pacing restlessly in front of Cameron’s bloody body. Maya snickered into her hand. “I’d make it fucking ourselves over your bloodied corpse, but Maya’s more squeamish about entrails than I am, even yours. It shall be arranged later this evening. Another wish.”

“How many I get?” Cameron asked. He spat a thick strand of blood from his mouth.

“Depends on how long you live.”

“You some kind of genie or something?” Cameron asked. He’d already passed the skeptical stage after everything he’d seen. “So I get three wishes from your ass, and you can’t do a fugging thing about it.”

“Something like that,” Bell said, seething behind his hazel eyes. Either Cameron couldn’t see the fire or he foolishly didn’t care.

“Fuggin’ A. So if I wished I was rich…”

“I would make you rich,” Bell said.

Cameron laughed through the blood in his mouth. Maya had never known anyone that functionally stupid. He hadn’t even figured out that Derrick’s freak accident might have had something to do with Bell. She didn’t know what kind of reality Cameron was living in, but it wasn’t everyone else’s reality.

“Then I wish I had a million dollars,” Cameron said. “Right now, not this evening or when I’m eighty.”

“Granted,” Bell said. “How fortuitous that I encountered a true intellectual who knows how to ask for what he wants.”

“Probably burns your yams that you have to just give it to me,” Cameron said. “But I got it figured out. I just—”

Cameron blinked. Then he doubled over, clutching his stomach.

“You failed to request where you wanted your money and in what form,” Bell said darkly.

Cameron retched, coughed then expelled a stream of large silver coins and globs of wet paper money from his mouth. There was a wet tearing sound. More coins and bills spilled from the legs of his board shorts.

Maya looked away and covered her ears. She had no sympathy, none at all. But she hated the sound of it.

“You bastard!” Cameron shouted, as soon as Bell gave him some air so that Cameron wouldn’t die before he was given the full haul.

“Your wish is incomplete,” Bell replied, and the double-ended expulsion continued anew.

The on-and-off flow of coins and bills, which were covered in all manner of goo that Maya didn’t want to touch or even think about, spilled out like a polluted river flow for another few minutes. Maya had to stand up to get out of the way. The clowns paced the edge of the broken circle like a pack of impatient coyotes waiting for the right moment. Some of the cast actually got bored and walked away, but Bell maintained a steely gaze on the young man as he reaped Cameron’s wish. When the filthy flood ceased, the rest appeared in clean, stacked bills above the pile.

“You fugging bastard, that wasn’t what I asked for,” Cameron sobbed through his bruised, possibly perforated throat. His face shone with tears, phlegm and diluted blood.

“I always give the wisher exactly what he asks for,” Bell said. “It is your mistake that you were not specific enough.”

“Fug this noise. I’m not making another wish. You haven’t granded my first one anyway and the second…you sick fug.”

“I told you, the wish will be granted later this evening. You just don’t get to see it. Maya is adventurous, but I would never share her with you. Now, good sir, you said you wouldn’t make any more wishes,” Bell said. “Tragedy, Comedy, Murphy, he’s all yours.”

The Ringmaster withdrew his whip with a rabid grin, and Bell turned his back on Cameron to wrap his arm around Maya’s shoulders. They walked away as the clowns advanced on Cameron, hunched over in anticipation. The rest of the cast, even the other demons, joined Bell and Maya on the other side of the trailer so that they wouldn’t have to watch.

“Wait, wait!” Cameron shouted after them in a panic. “I wish to be out of here. Get me out of here.”

“Granted,” Bell said.

And did absolutely nothing. The clowns would take care of the fulfillment in their own special way.

“Forget about him,” Bell murmured to Maya as they entered their RV. “He’s not worth the second thought, and they will eat him slowly.”

“Forget about who?” Maya asked, shedding the remnants of her costume. All of her trembling had disappeared.

Bell pulled their hips together. “There’s my girl. You amaze me, Maya.”

“Don’t we have a convention to go to?” Maya asked.

“They’re having other events tomorrow and Sunday morning. They can wait. Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. “The jackal didn’t…”

“No,” Maya said. “He just tried.”

Bell cupped her face in his hands, staring at her with such smoldering intensity that Maya thought she would melt as his gaze moved from her eyes to her mouth. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, almost chaste, if not for how tightly he held her.

The next few kisses were far from pure. He made love to her mouth and molded her to his body as though, if he held her close enough, she would dissolve right into him.

“Asalam. Golam,” Bell muttered against her lips.

“Do I want to know what you were saying to the guys in whatever language you lapse into when you’re furious or horny?” Maya asked.

Bell laughed and pressed his forehead against hers. “They are not appropriate to be spoken at this moment, no. But what I tell you is how precious you are to me. Ta setareha dooset daram. I will never, ever, let anyone try to hurt you like that without making them pay. I would eat their souls for you, Maya.”

“Just what a girl likes to hear,” Maya said. Then she pulled him down for another kiss, starving for them, for him.

She forgot about the dinner, about the convention, about the three new additions to Arcanium, and about the clowns’ impending full bellies.

Maya just closed her eyes and helped Bell fulfill the forgotten one’s first wish.