Chapter Fifteen

 

 

 

Men still came specifically to see her in the funhouse and were still urged to continue down the corridors by the Gentleman, who was as gentlemanly as ever. None of that had changed.

The only difference was that they quickly discovered she wasn’t the Lucy Lewd other people had sworn she was. Because she wore her armor now instead of the latex bodysuit to show off her distinct lack of tattooing, Troy said people online were debunking the rumors with their own pictures. A few people thought Lucy Lewd had only been there temporarily as a promotional gimmick, especially since Bell hadn’t sent the red tent into the outside world in a while. Maybe they thought Elizabeth was some kind of cheaper body double, as though any skinny, half-Asian chick would do in the Spider role.

She felt much freer in the armor, though. Nanny Elizabeth would have been mortified at the amount of skin it showed and the fetish style of the costume, but compared to what she’d worn in the coffin, it was positively modest. Her job was still to hang there and look pretty and scary at the same time, but in the less intimate venue of the haunted funhouse, she could live with that for now.

 

* * * *

 

She knew something was wrong when the regular chorus of screams and moans ceased, one by one. The strobe lights and soundtrack also quieted, the way they did at the end of the work day when the performances were about to begin. She usually had a pretty good idea how long she’d been in the funhouse, mostly by the cycles of food that guests brought through the corridors. It was just around dinnertime, not closing.

Once the funhouse had gone completely silent, she could hear the dense drumming of a rainstorm on the roof, and thunder shook the spiderweb. Turned out Bell couldn’t control the weather, although that had been a pet theory of hers after they’d gone through January and February with not a bit of snow on the ground everywhere they traveled. If the rain was bad enough, Bell had probably herded everyone to the big top to wait it out, which meant they wouldn’t have any guests coming through the funhouse any time soon.

She didn’t know the procedure for a rainstorm. Usually, when the soundtrack and lights stopped, they’d all be released, but the ropes strapped over her arms and legs hadn’t loosened.

She shrugged internally and slumped in the bindings, resting in the cradle of the web with her eyes closed. Strobe lighting had a tendency to pierce through her eyelids and keep her from settling down, a constant stream of visual stimulation. It was much easier in the steady twilight darkness to drift away, drift off.

“Wake up, sweetheart.”

The voice was so soft, the stroke of fingers pushing her hair behind her ear so tender, she thought she was dreaming at first, that moths fluttered over her and the words were the beating of wings.

“It’s time to wake up.” The hand drifted from her ear to the edge of the corset over her breast, stroking flesh all the way down.

That woke her up, eyes flying open in a rush of both arousal and panic.

“Good evening, Spider.” The man in a trench coat and fedora smiled and stepped back, maintaining contact with her as long as possible. “Today’s your lucky day.”

She opened her mouth to call for the Gentleman, even though she still didn’t have a voice before closing, but he clicked his tongue as though she were a naughty girl. Then he snapped his fingers.

The ropes holding her released, and she fell to the floor. He grinned rakishly down at her as she untangled her legs.

“They’re giving an early performance. Bell won’t even realize you’re gone until it’s too late.” He swept an arm toward the entrance with a bow. “The gates of Arcanium are open, and the magic keeping you has been lifted. No consequences.”

A tumble of questions piled on her tongue, caged behind her sharp teeth.

“It’s a limited time offer, Elizabeth. I’d get going if I were you.” He lifted his hat in farewell then backed down the corridor and turned the corner toward the other exhibits.

Is this some kind of trick? Some kind of test?

But it wasn’t just quiet. It was like the hum of a generator had turned off, a sound she’d been so used to that she hadn’t noticed it until it wasn’t there anymore.

She slowly made her way toward the entrance.

The Gentleman hovered a few inches above the ground in his corner, his head slack on a lolling neck. She’d never touched him before, but she tentatively took his wrist between her fingers to try to find a pulse. She didn’t even know whether he had a heart.

His skin was rubbery underneath the powdered surface, what she imagined an alien would feel like. There was a pulse, though—faster than the resting rate of a person, but a pulse nonetheless. She didn’t feel as bad moving on.

The funhouse entrance was open, and the carnival part of Arcanium was deserted. At least it seemed like that until she noticed furtive movement within Oddity Row, and around the corner of the haunted funhouse, prisoners started to make a run for it.

Still unsure how much she could trust the man in the trench coat, Elizabeth climbed down the stairs and followed them.

As she passed the oddity tents, someone hissed her name from the other side.

Kevin, with his sad cat face and soft, bald body, beckoned her onto the Row. He crossed his arms over his chest, his cat ears flicking fussily as the rain pounded on them.

“Did you see him, too?” He rubbed his whiskers with the back of his hand to brush off the water. “The man in the hat? Do you think it’s true, that we can just leave?”

“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said.

Kevin took a step toward her. She retreated, wary not just of him but of everything. In spite of the storm, it was too damn quiet. And she’d washed her hands of all these people running past her like the hounds of hell were at their heels. It was the prisoners’ Walk of Shame from the funhouse in fast forward, with the mostly mobile victims carrying the ones who had been maimed and mauled, Blondie clutching at her vines, the werewolf loping by.

“Kevin, you fucker, come on!”

Elizabeth jerked behind the oddity tent she was next to at Hank’s surreptitious shout. She didn’t think he’d seen her, but she didn’t want him getting ideas, even if he didn’t have a dick to do them with. That’s when maladaptives like him started using knives and other violent substitutes.

“Did he go through all of Oddity Row?” Elizabeth whispered.

Kevin shook his head. “Just after the performers left to go backstage—the contortionist, the bearded lady, the demons… You know, Bell’s people.” He backed away, glancing over his shoulder to where Hank was probably gesturing to him. “After what happened…I’m glad he let you go, too. Now come on. We need to hurry. We don’t know when Bell’s going to realize what’s happening. Or worse, the clowns.”

He seemed reluctant to let her go alone, but when she avoided him getting even within arm’s length, he decided it was best to let her move at her own pace.

She crept around Oddity Row, walking to put distance between her and Hank and Kevin running. She walked briskly but walked just the same.

The Arcanium gates were wide open. No ticket-taker golem, no sword swallower at his platform, no clowns prowling the fence. Just open gates and woods next to the field that had become a makeshift parking lot. There was no sign of the man in the trench coat.

She watched through sheets of rain as the prisoners hobbled, lumbered and helped others across the Arcanium border into the outside. No one stumbled, no one screamed, no one writhed in unbearable pain. They hurried into the dark woods, obscured by rain and shadow. She heard shouts from among the trees, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

As he and Kevin crossed the threshold, Hank whooped, pumping the air with his fist, his petticoat flouncing. Then they, too, disappeared into the forest.

A few other prisoners passed by her, Blondie choking on her ivy, whipping boys sprinting for the finish line, flesh-eaten invalids shivering with fever but just as eager to get out of Arcanium.

Elizabeth stopped behind the sword swallower’s platform, about twenty feet from the entrance.

The prisoners were able to leave without consequences, but they weren’t changing back. Blondie still had ivy emerging from her orifices, and the lesions of the flesh-eaten prisoners’ bodies were still bloody, necrotic and seeping pus. Hank had still been the Man Doll, and Kevin had still been the Sphynx.

Maybe they’d decided it was worth it. Maybe they thought they’d rather die than stay, rather be a freak than Bell’s plaything, rather take their chances with normals than remain in the circus. Maybe they thought the magic would wear off. Maybe they were just so distracted by the prospect of freedom that they hadn’t even realized they’d left one hell and stumbled into another.

Elizabeth’s throat tightened as she thought about whoever had been maimed by the butcher, operated upon by the surgeon. The whipping boys would heal, but the diseased prisoners would still have bacteria killing their flesh. The werewolf would still be long-armed and hairy.

And she’d still be the Spider.

But she could be free. In theory, she could go under the knife and have the limbs removed, but even if she had to be the Spider forever, she’d still be free. She could run straight into her father’s arms and hide in the congregation like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Or she could join a regular freak show, where the freaks were just freaks and not magical hybrid toys.

Elizabeth stepped toward the open gates, hesitant, alternating between her prime legs and her secondary, rocking back and forth. The rain had soaked her hair into thick ropes, permeated the leather. Now the cold was starting to seep beneath the surface of her skin.

She’d be free. Wouldn’t she?

She only needed a few long strides to step across, out of Bell’s clutches. She’d already had Bell strip Lucy from her skin. She really could start over again.

“Elizabeth.”

There he was again, just like the last time she’d tried to run, back when the gates had been locked and chained against her. The Creature landed on the platform, majestic in the gray haze. He stepped down onto the ground and stood behind her.

“Don’t go.”

“I might not get another chance, not for years.” She wiped the rain from her eyes in a futile gesture. “Decades. Centuries, even. This might be it.”

“Do you really think Bell will leave this trespass unanswered? Any good will you’ve curried, any freedoms you’ve gained within the circus… It might take those decades or centuries to regain them again. Even if you evade him, what kind of world will it be for you?” He held out his hand. “There is escape and freedom, Elizabeth, but it’s not out in that world. Not yet. Please, little Spider. Stay.”

Elizabeth looked back at the open gate. The last stragglers from the funhouse stumbled over the borders and staggered into the world beyond to take their chances.

God, how she wanted to leave Arcanium.

He smoothed his hand over her cheek, his breath hot against her hair. “It’s not just your fear I desire. It’s not just the strangeness of you that I love. There is a future for you here. Bell wouldn’t have brought you in if he didn’t have greater plans. But even if he doesn’t… Stay with me.”

His fur was wet, but she let his warmth draw her in, closed her eyes against the false promise of the open gates and enshrouded herself in the Creature’s wings. She covered her face and hid herself against his chest. With her secondary hands, she gripped the Creature’s sides, holding on to him to tether herself, lest she find herself pulled to the other side of the gates from temptation too great to resist.

Because he was right. There was no way Bell was just going to let her go if she crossed the threshold. Did she honestly think she could run and never be found again? She couldn’t even cry anymore. What was inside her was too big, too dark and powerful—to have the outside world so close and now not even the hope of escape in her grasp, denied to her more times than she could count.

“What in the barren expanse of hell happened here?”

Bell yanked open the folded cocoon of the Creature’s wings.

She didn’t think she’d ever heard Bell like this. He’d never shouted, never been angry like…like a regular person.

A regular person who’d lost control.

He paused in his rampage when she raised her head from her hands, as though he hadn’t expected her.

“Elizabeth.”

“There was a man, a man who never showed me his eyes. He said he’d opened the gates for us, that we could leave and you wouldn’t know. Almost all the prisoners and the oddities who aren’t performers left. They’re out there.” Elizabeth waved her hand at the woods.

Bell struggled to contain his rage. He whirled around and pointed to the incubus and succubus, who’d come up from the big top with the clowns behind them. “You! Into the forest. Bring back whomever you can find. I’ve closed the circus borders again. They’ll be easy enough to pluck from where they’re screaming and writhing in pain. Take any of the prisoners you want as payment, but the oddities are off-limits and for the Ringmaster to handle. He’ll be out to join you as soon as his performance has concluded. Go!”

The clowns darted through the gates, and the incubus and succubus launched themselves into the air as though they had wings, seemingly unaffected by the downpour, though Lord Mikhail teetered as he gained altitude over the woods.

Bell closed his hand over Elizabeth’s wrist. “The man. I need to know what he looked like and exactly what happened. Look at me. I need to see through your eyes.”

Elizabeth backed into the Creature, who held her shoulders the way he had that first night, giving her another disorienting case of déjà vu. “You never had to before.”

“I can’t see him. I can’t even see him through your mind alone.” He grasped her face and peered deep into her. She couldn’t feel anything physically, but mentally, it was like he inserted knitting needles through her eyes straight into the frontal lobe.

Bell abruptly let her go and spat to the side in disgust. “Goddammit. I still can’t see him.” He spun around to start for the woods.

Elizabeth yanked him back to her. “Why can’t you see him? Talk to me. What is he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know because you don’t know,” he said with visible frustration. “But I know what he did and how to defend against it. In the meantime, he’s tipped his hand. Now I know someone’s following Arcanium. Whatever his intentions are, he won’t be able to anticipate me any more than I can anticipate him.”

“Why can’t you?”

“There are only two possibilities, which are really the same at their core. He’s either an exceptionally powerful demon or he’s an exceptionally powerful jinni. Either way, whether he merely seeks to interfere with my circus or steal it, I intend to remind him why I have two demons just like him serving Arcanium.”

This time, what kept him there was his own hesitation. His frenzy softened into a squall, until it was less furious than the rain pouring down over them.

“I apologize for snapping at you. You are not the one I’m angry with. Far from it, Lizzie. I’m exceedingly pleased that you were not one of the fools who attempted to flee.”

“It’s not because of Arcanium. I didn’t do it for you,” Elizabeth said.

“I know. But you made a choice, and it was the right one. It will not go unacknowledged.” He quickly leaned in and kissed her cheek. “For remaining, and for opening your mind to me.”

“But you didn’t see him in any of our minds when he let us go. What if he comes back?”

“You didn’t even know anything was wrong until I alerted Kitty,” the Creature added.

“I do have some blind spots. Very few beings have the means to conceal themselves from me, but they do exist. Of course, there’s another, more worrying possibility,” Bell replied darkly.

Elizabeth’s stomach went as cold as her rain-drenched skin. “Is Arcanium safe?”

“The magic around it was manipulated, but the magical protections are supplemented with flesh-and-blood guards like the Creature and the clowns. Reconstituted magic and retrieval are exactly how Arcanium should work after a breach. And in the failure of all else, I am its last defense, and I have not yet lost a battle.” His forehead furrowed, his expression hard. “However, if I cannot see him not because he is too powerful but because he is too intertwined with my own fate, then all I can do now is prepare for another attack and increase Arcanium’s protections—which means getting all my prisoners back within the borders and reminding them of the real meaning of wrath. They forget so quickly, though, that it hardly seems worth keeping them now. If you would like to take closer shelter than the caravan, Elizabeth, the red tent should be set up for you to dry off and rest quietly out of the storm.”

Bell strode right out of the still-open gate and into the woods, but Elizabeth sensed the barrier’s return, the hum of magic vibrating subtly through her skin once more.

Blondie was the first of the prisoners to be returned. Lord Mikhail dropped her unceremoniously onto the ground well inside the fence. Blood dripped down her legs and from her mouth and nose. Running with a parasitic vine in the real world probably hadn’t been as safe outside Arcanium as it had been within. Between her muffled screams and gasps for breath, she scratched at her skin and clothes, tearing lines into her flesh without any heed of the damage.

“I should probably join them, retrieve whatever didn’t survive the transition, bring back who I can.” The Creature pressed his cheek to her sodden hair. “Would you rather I stay?”

Elizabeth wanted him to, but she shook her head. More lives would be saved if the Creature could help Bell bring everyone back.

“I’ll come back to you,” he whispered.

Weight in her limbs she hadn’t felt in weeks made her solo journey back to Oddity Row ponderous, but she slipped behind the curtain of the red tent with some relief. The heat bulbs that kept the tropical specimens warm provided enough light. She opted not to turn on the lamps.

Instead of the glass coffin, a large cot waited for her, with towels to dry herself off and quilts for afterward. Elizabeth stripped off the ruined leather, which she suspected wouldn’t be ruined in the morning. Then she wrapped herself in two quilts and lay on the cot, hungry but warming up under the dry blankets.

A golem entered to bring her dinner, unperturbed by the change in venue or her nakedness. Eating helped, but she couldn’t sleep until the Creature came to her.

He shook himself free of rain and blood spatter, used the rest of the towels to clean and dry himself off. She watched him, and he watched her. When he was done, she opened the quilts to let him in against her, wrapping her arms and the quilts around him like wings of her own.