Firetale (2 page)

"He's not going to run. He'll be back.
But I need to know where he goes and what he does. I want to know
everything about his every move, Zinnober. Do you understand me? I
do not want him to endanger us all. Got it?"

"Yes, sir. You can count on
me."

"Good," said Bernardius. He sighed and
went straight to the backyard without saying goodbye.

Only four people from the circus,
including Lazarus, could sneak away to follow Greg, wherever he
went. All the other inhabitants looked far too frightening to
laymen. Of the four, the archivist would never leave his books and
scrolls, Lazarus was needed to supervise the dismantling of the big
top, and as for Martha, Bernardius just could not send her after
Greg. That left only Zinnober. No one who saw him would remember
his face. More to the point, they would remember too many faces
…

“
Crying slowly and sucking on a
gun.”

Danzig
, “Do You Wear the Mark”

Once the applause died down and
the audience
was out the door, the magician went backstage. The night
was dark and close, a proper night for an execution. Greg did not
care that Lazarus, this whiner, this Mr. Play-It-Safe, was unhappy
with his tricks with fire. Tonight the bird saw a bad guy, and the
ball showed his face. Fire cleanses. You can’t hide your filth from
the flames. The firebird was like radar that detected sinister and
wicked souls, and the crystal ball was the display on which Greg
could see them. Lately, the ball had not shown Greg what he wanted
to see, and his tension had been rising. He was nervous, and only
Martha’s company gave him peace. But when Martha was not there, a
strange hunger devoured him from the inside. But tonight, at last,
was the night.

Greg had to see the
malefactor’s face in
the ball to spot him in the crowd of spectators leaving the circus.
The image in the ball had already started to fade, but it was still
possible to discern some facial features. A balding middle-aged
man, square chin, glasses on a hooked nose, a face that seemed to
belong to a professor or a doctor, not a murderer. But appearances
can be deceiving, a fact Greg knew better than anyone. The ball was
never mistaken. So many towns, so many shows, and the ball had
never pointed him to the wrong man. Greg had little time; he needed
to find the man with glasses. The magician set the crystal ball
aside and went to a marquee. He was lucky. A part of the audience
had lingered, as if expecting the show to continue. Children asked
their parents to let them see the cages with the freaks—a
fire-breathing monkey or a Cyclops woman.

Greg spotted the man from the
ball
. He was
standing alone, feigning interest in the proceedings. He began to
wander among people and went to examine the tent area. But his eyes
kept returning to the same thing, a little girl no more than eight
years old who was begging her parents to stay for a while at the
circus. They explained to her that it was late and time to go home,
but they seemed in no hurry to leave. The girl was wearing a white
dress with red polka dots and red patent leather shoes. The clothes
were well worn, though clean. By the standards of the town, in
which the appearance of the traveling circus was the main event of
the year, the girl’s dress was almost ceremonial.

The man with glasses was dressed
in a boiler
suit and greasy oversized pants. A hired auto mechanic. Not
the most enviable job for someone his age, but for people like him,
career and money were not the most important things in life. He
stood a few meters away from the girl, his gaze sliding over her,
razor-sharp and dark as a dry well, but he did not dare approach.
Greg had seen that gaze before. It was the gaze of a man who does
ugly things to pretty girls.

“
Hey, mister,” Greg called to
him. “Mister, wanna see a trick? Absolutely free.”

Greg moved
through the sparse crowd toward
the man with glasses. Someone in the crowd recognized the magician,
and he heard cheers. A few people even slapped him on the shoulder.
Greg did not care for such chumminess, but he forced himself to
smile. He didn’t want to frighten the man in the boiler suit. He
needn’t have worried. The man was so entranced by the little girl
that he did not realize the magician had addressed him. By the time
the penny dropped, Greg was standing next to him. “Mister, you’re a
little hard of hearing,” Greg said, smiling. He heard a few
twitters of laughter. “I want to show you a trick. I’ll do it in a
split second.”

“
No, don’t bother,” the man said.
“I must go home.”

“
What’s up, mister? It’s fast. I
just want to show you a trick, not all the
Guiding Light
episodes at one go,” Greg continued.
The laughter increased.

“
Honestly, it’s time for me to go
home,” the man replied, clearly not happy with the attention or the
laughter from the crowd.

He
started to walk away, but a bearded, burly
jasper in the crowd put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, stop acting
up! Don’t be prim. Everybody wants a free ride.”

The man with glasses raised his hands
apologetically, and the bearded man, looking pleased, nodded to
Greg. The magician nodded back.

“
What’s your name?” Greg asked
the man with glasses.

“
Mr. Berry,” the man
replied.

“
Hmm, Berry. Well, Mr. Berry,
please check the pockets of your trousers, but please be careful.”
Berry rooted around in his pockets, and his face took on a puzzled
expression. When he pulled his hands out of the pockets, they were
holding large red strawberries. A smattering of applause
followed.

“
Mr. Berry, let’s convince the
audience that you didn’t put the berries there in advance,” Greg
said. “Check your pockets one more time.” The man with glasses did
as Greg asked. This time he pulled out raspberries. The applause
was louder.

“
Please, Mr. Berry, don’t
stop.”

Berry put hands in his pockets
several times, and each time he took out some
berries
,
which he gave away. He looked a little woozy. He was obviously not
used to being in the spotlight. He became distraught, his face
paled, and his movements became awkward. The children and adults
were happy about the free berries, and Greg forced Berry to check
his pockets until everyone had some.

“
Perhaps that’s enough,” Greg
said at last. “Let’s not misuse Mr. Berry’s time, because I
promised the trick would be short. In fact, Mr. Berry, I want to
pay you for this inconvenience.” Greg held up his hand, put it over
the man’s balding head and over his left ear, and showed the crowd
and Mr. Berry a five-dollar bill, clenched in his fist. “For your
pains, Mr. Berry.”

Mr. Berry hesitated
a moment, and then
hurried away, followed by the envious glances of the crowd. Greg
took his leave and went to his trailer. Now he could take his time
and wait until everyone else in the circus fell asleep. He would
have a few hours before morning, when they would start to
disassemble the main tent and load the cages. The trick with the
banknote had gone smoothly. Berry was so confused and scared that
he had not noticed Greg plucking a hair from his head. The hair was
a bit short, but it would be enough.

Greg crossed the backyard
and walked past the
brothers Blanche and Black, who barely paid any attention to him.
He hoped Martha was in a pad room brushing up after the
performance, so he would be able to stay in the trailer alone. He
was lucky. There was no one there. At the rear of the trailer was a
chest that contained supplies for tricks. The chest was small
because Greg relied more on his inner magic, his instincts, the
fire in his blood. Normal magicians only pretended they had magic,
and their tricks were carefully planned stunts, the execution of
which required a ton of stage props, boxes, mirrors, barrels,
mechanisms of all kinds, and mechanisms masking mechanisms. In
other traveling circuses, illusionists needed more space for
rehearsals and a truck to carry all their equipment. That was not
necessary for Greg. His magic was real, even though he did not
fully understand how he was able to manipulate it. Because of his
abilities, Lazarus Bernardius had picked Greg off the streets and
found a new home for him among the circus freaks and renegades.
Greg quickly realized that everything in this circus that seemed
like an illusion or like expensive makeup to fool the audience was
real. These monsters and whackos were real. Lazarus crisscrossed
the country to find them and give them shelter. To be called a real
circus, Bernardius needed only a magician.

Or a real mage. Lazarus
insisted
that
Greg not use magic outside the circus and forbade him from harming
anyone. Greg had agreed, although the prohibition annoyed him. What
was the sense of fire magic if it couldn’t be used for real
benefit? It was like having a million dollars and not daring to
spend a dime. Greg had obeyed at first, but eventually he learned
to circumvent the ban. He did not try to negotiate with Bernardius.
The craggy old man wouldn’t have approved killing people. His
philosophy was that the circus inhabitants should communicate with
ordinary people as little as possible. They should mix with normals
only to buy food, sell tickets, repair cars, and find out if they
had heard about any strange things in their
neighborhoods.

Greg pulled an oiled bag out of
the chest. There were black candles in the bag, each one as thick
as a grown man
’s forearm. In the dim light of the trailer, the candles
gleamed strangely, as if made of polished black steel instead of
wax. If someone stared at one for a while, it would appear to be
alive, its butyraceous glow pulsating, its surface similar to the
carapace of a huge insect. Greg took one of the candles and Mr.
Berry’s strand of hair. He carefully wrapped it around the wick,
which was much longer and thicker than the wick of a normal candle.
With a slight hiss, the hair grew into the wick, issuing a greenish
glow. Greg took the candle with Berry’s hair, put the rest of the
candles back in the bag, and left the trailer.

The circus was
on a vacant lot on
the outskirts of a town. Greg had to go around the encampment
perimeter, choosing the darkest spots, trying not to make any
noise. He soon disappeared into the night. When he had gone a good
distance from the circus and was walking down the poorly
illuminated streets of the town, he lit a candle. Its flame was
weak, more like a smoldering. Holding the candle at arm’s length,
Greg checked to his right and his left, in front of him and behind
him, all around. Candle flames flickered and twitched when Greg
chose the wrong side, but grew brighter when the magician headed in
the right direction. The candle burned most vividly when it was
pointed northeast, so Greg went in that direction. A night action
was not pleasant or fast, but it was the easiest way to track down
the killer, and Greg did not complain.

The magician was so focused on
the candle flame that pointed the way to Mr. Berry
that he did not
notice the short stooped figure following him in the shadows. Small
Zaches, bynamed Zinnober, could be very stealthy in the
dark.

“
You’re the cutest girl I’ve
ever seen in my life

Now, louder now and with my
knife
.”

Husker Du
, “Diane”

Mr. Berry was angry and
confused.
That uncouth punk of a magician had brought too much
attention to him. Mr. Berry did not like to be in the spotlight,
and the magician’s shenanigans had infringed on his first
rule—keeping his head down. His safety depended on strictly abiding
by the rules, and he did his best not to step out of line. He would
have to stay in town for a couple of months more, another rule. He
had been at it for fourteen years, and his current town was his
twentieth. He had been Mr. Lock, Mr. White, Mr. Stamp, Mr. Glass,
Mr. Bone, and fourteen other misters. Moving frequently was
necessitated by his other main rule: one city, one killing. He
never killed immediately upon arrival and did not leave a city
immediately after the murder.

He knew that people in small towns were
too concerned about strangers, so he needed to make himself
familiar. It could take a month or two, maybe half a year. The
people must become accustomed to him, stop talking about him as a
newcomer. And no matter how desirable it was to escape from a city
right after the kiss-off, he had to pull himself together and sit
tight. Otherwise, it would be too suspicious, and suspicion causes
excessive scrutiny. During the months of waiting, he could plan and
prepare. Only an idiot kills spontaneously, succumbing to
lust.

This implie
d two more rules: be patient and
prepare in advance.

Sometimes Mr. Berry watched a
movie on TV.
Now and then, movies about serial killers and maniacs came
up. Mr. Berry never drew a parallel between himself and the
villains of these films. Filmmakers had always been interested in
killers who challenged society. Movie maniacs were too sociable,
teasing detectives and tossing them puzzles pointing to the next
murder. They behaved like men who dreamed of recognition. Such
killers Berry did not understand. He tried not to leave any trace,
avoiding police, and he did not care about society.