Firetale (24 page)

Greg was
surprised
. “A
witch? So you’re a demionis, too.”

“
Lazarus, I see you haven’t
expatiated upon me.” Her tone was playfully indignant, but for a
moment Greg thought the tentmaster and the witch were a little
tense. “No, baby, I, like every other witch, am not a mongrel. I’m
not immortal like Lazarus, and I can’t turn a hand into a flame
whip like you. I’m not a wizard or a werewolf, but I can do a thing
or two.”

“
Stop calling me baby or boy. My
name is Greg.”

“
Look at you! You have not only
fiery arms, but also a fiery temper! I’ll try, but do not forget
that I’m old enough to be your mother, baby. Anyway, nice to meet
you.” Ino winked again.

Greg
decided to abandon the topic of how
to address him.

“
It is strange that Mr.
Bernardius never talked about his friends,” said Greg.

“
Well, maybe it’s because we were
not just friends,” Ino replied to Greg, but her eyes were fixed on
Lazarus. The tentmaster was sitting on an old stool, his shoulders
down, and he seemed to be trying to squeeze into a ball like a
hedgehog. Anyone looking at him now would not imagine how tall he
really was.

“
You and Mr.
Bernardius?”

“
So what? I was a young witch,
and he was an immortal who communicated with demons. We were made
for each other.” With every word from her mouth, it seemed as if a
bullet hit Lazarus. Ino’s playful mood was gone.

“
Enough!” Mr. Bernardius said.
“Now is not the time to remember it, Ino.”

“
Not the time? When will it be,
Lazarus? After another thirty-eight years? Or when I die and you
are continuing to enjoy your eternal life?” Ino’s voice rang with
fury.

“
Look, it’s none of my business.
I can wait outside until you discuss what’s happened to you.” Greg
got up from his chair, but Ino was unstoppable.

“
Love happened, my boy. I wanted
to be with him, with this asshole, traveling with the circus. But
he refused. Then we agreed that we would see each other, at least
occasionally. I would find him by the circus posters, and he would
find me by secret signs that I would leave as I moved from place to
place.”

“
I’m grateful you left them,
Ino,” Lazarus said. “We were able to find you.”

“
Only because you suddenly needed
something from me! Thirty-eight years! Have you never wanted to see
me?”

“
Every fucking day, Ino! Every
fucking day!” Lazarus was out of his chair like a straightened
spring. Bernardius almost cried, and even Greg leaned back a
little, so striking was the change in the always calm and
reasonable tentmaster. “But I told you that the circus is not a
place for humans. And I cannot be with you.”

“
But why,
Lazarus?”

“
Because I’m demionis. If we were
together, if we ever had children, I do not know what they would
have been, Ino.” Mr. Bernardius’s shoulders drooped again and his
eyes sparkled. Greg realized that he had never thought about the
children he and Martha might have had. A horrible thought that they
might not have a human form made him shudder. Ino turned away for a
moment, and there was silence in the room. Music, laughter, and
girls’ giggles came from the bar. When Ino turned to Lazarus and
Greg, her expression was almost the same as when they had seen her
the first time, cheerful and playful.

“
So, what brings you here, boys?”
Ino asked.

“
We need your help,” Lazarus
said. “Recently, a Judge came to the circus. He said nothing
specific, but it looks like he was particularly interested in
Greg.”

“
Greg? So this cutie violated the
Pactum? And just how serious was your violation, Greg?” The
magician exchanged glances with Lazarus.

“
Serious,” said Greg.

Lazarus sighed and
Ino
’s
playfulness vanished again.

“
I need you to hide him,” said
Bernardius.

“
Well, stand up, guys, and then
slide the table,” the witch said. Lazarus and Greg did as she
asked. In the floor was a small hatch. Ino opened it with a jerk
and started down the dark stairs, gesturing for her guests to
follow.

The descent was longer than Greg
expected
. The
underground tunnel led down almost twenty feet. Its round arches,
reinforced with wooden beams, were dimly lit with lamps. The trio
came to a square room, which had a ceiling supported by columns
made of sanded tree trunks. Lamps hung from the ceiling, making the
room brighter than the tunnel, though the illumination was still
poor.

On the walls of the room hung
bunches of flowers and roots,
the bones of some small animals, and whole
skeletons. At the opposite wall from the entrance stood a rack on
whose shelves rested jars with colored liquids and ointments, bags
of powder, and bundles of grass. On the ground near the entrance
were piles of books, old and new, but with no names or
illustrations on their covers. In one corner stood a huge barrel
containing a thick, dark liquid. In another corner, a fire pit had
been dug into the ground. In the center of the room were two broad
tables with witches’ tools. There were sickles of different shapes,
made of metal or bone, knives and needles, some as long as a man’s
forearm, bottles and skeins of yarn and leather strips, mortar and
scales, and some notes and drawings.

“
Welcome to my workroom,” Ino
said proudly.

“
Nice,” Lazarus said.

“
And what do you do here? I don’t
see any ovens for roasting children,” Greg said, aiming for a
joke.

“
I cook potions, prepare
ointments,” Ino said.

“
For whom?”

“
For the guys from the
bar.”

“
The bikers? Why would they need
it?”

“
Someone has to stay awake at
night on the road and feel fresh. Someone needs a cure for a
hangover. Someone gets old and becomes weak in the eyes or the
legs, so it’s more difficult to ride a bike. I provide them with
whatever solves their problems,” Ino said.

Greg shrugged. “But why
them?”

“
They do not ask questions. They
do not care how or what I’m doing. If it works—and it does—that’s
all they want to know.”

“
And can you make something,
well, stronger than herbal potions for sore muscles?”

“
Of course. I can make it so that
your penis will be no larger than an earthworm.” Ino held a finger
right under Greg’s nose. “Relax, sweetie. With you I will not do
this. But I could. It’s an excellent tool to hasten payment from
guys who like to drink on credit and forget to pay their bills on
time.” Ino laughed. “But if the customer pays, I can make an
ointment that will allow him to fuck a dozen girls in a
row.”

“
So, the bar is just a cover?”
Lazarus asked.

“
Not really. Mostly a spot to
gather my clientele. Well, it also brings profit.”

“
How long you have you been doing
this?” Lazarus asked, with a hint of condemnation.

“
This is my ninth
bar.”

“
Ninth?”

“
I have to move constantly. I
tried to work at home, opening bars by the road or in the city. But
not everyone likes a strange girl who sells strange substances to
strange guys. When too much attention comes, you have to make a
change,” Ino explained with a shrug.

“
Interesting. But I don’t
understand how all these things of yours can help me,” Greg
said.

“
Ino can hide you from the
Judges,” said Lazarus.

“
Hide? I’ll drink one of her
potions and become an invisible man?”

“
No, Greg, all Judges are able to
feel demionis,” explained Lazarus. “But some, the most gifted, can
be
tuned
to specific mongrels, like a receiver tuned to a radio
station. Ino can make a potion that jams
the station’s signal. Your signal.
So, in a sense, yes, you will be invisible to Judges.”

“
It sounds fantastic,” Greg said.
“If Ino had prepared such potions for our circus, no Judge could
have found us. Isn’t that right, Mr. Bernardius?”

“
Ino is not demionis,” Lazarus
reminded him.

“
Yeah, okay. But wouldn’t the
Devil stand up for the woman who helps his children?”

“
My boy, witches do not serve the
Devil, despite what you might have heard about them,” Ino explained
calmly. “Nor do we serve God. There is nothing magical about our
knowledge. Well, maybe a little bit. And so we are not loved the
same in Heaven and in Hell. Even if a witch carries on with the
Devil, his protection is not guaranteed.”

Greg laughed.
“Oh, well, of
course. So, I’ll get an exclusive potion. What do you need from
me?”

“
Undress,” said Ino.

“
Excuse me?”

“
Take off your clothes, baby. We
will wash you,” Ino said, waving toward the corner that had the
barrels filled with a strange dark liquid. “And you, too,” she
said, nodding to Lazarus.

Bernardius looked
confused.
“Me? Why?”

“
I want you to help me deliver
the boy to a secluded place, and I don’t want a Judge to be able to
track you.”

Lazarus nodded reluctantly, and
both men, embarrassed, began to undress. Greg felt guilty,
realizing that
a woman besides Martha would see him naked. Lazarus
obviously did not want his feelings for Ino to betray him. After
undressing, both flopped into barrels. They stooped down so that
the liquid reached Greg’s neck and Lazarus’s shoulders. With a
cheeky smile, the witch watched the men’s faces redden with
embarrassment. She decided to wash Greg first. She took a rough
washcloth and went to the magician’s barrel.

Greg turned pale.
“Excuse me, ma’am, I
mean Ino, are you going to wash me yourself?”

“
And you expected
what?”

“
I don’t know, it’s just a bit
…”

“
Embarrassing? Don’t worry.
Imagine you are at the doctor’s office. That’s my job, and I am a
professional.” Ino plunged a washcloth into the liquid. To the
magician’s surprise , the witch did not start at his shoulders or
back, but immediately went south, which made Greg nearly jump out
of the tight barrel. But the witch’s gaze was not directed at him.
She was looking at Lazarus, on whose face mingled anger, confusion,
frustration, and a bit of envy. To defuse the situation, Greg
decided to speak with Ino.

“
And what is the liquid in the
barrel?”

“
A decoction of various herbs. I
need to scrub you good so your skin particles can mix with it. Then
I’ll make a potion that will hide you from the Judges.”

Greg looked horrified.
“We’ll have to drink
it?”

“
I will add some berries to make
it taste sweet,” Ino said. “And something more.”

“
What?”

“
You know, some of what they say
about witches is true. All of these powders from the wings of bats
and soil from fresh graves, ceremonies at midnight at the
crossroads—we use something of this in our work.”

“
What will go into the potion?”
Greg asked.

“
Your blood, boys.” Ino pressed a
rough washcloth hard against Greg’s shoulder.

“
That hurts!”

“
Some magnetic dust, my blood,
extract of owl eye, and a couple of my secret ingredients,” Ino
said, ignoring Greg’s cry.

“
Secret ingredients?”

“
I can’t reveal them to you! Each
witch has her own; it’s like the unique style of an artist. And
though we share knowledge with each other, a potion that can hide a
mongrel from Judges is rare. No more than two or three of us, as
far as I know, can do it. So do not expect me to reveal their
secrets to you.” Ino continued to scour Greg’s back. When the
magician had come to terms with the fact that the torture in the
cramped barrel had made his feet and arms numb and would last
forever, Ino stopped.

“
You can go,” she said and then
went to Lazarus’s barrel.

“
Where to?”

“
Upstairs. Don’t worry, the guys
will not touch you. You can pour yourself something. I’m buying.
You’re a big boy, you can go up to the bar
unsupervised.”

“
And you?”

“
I still have to wash Lazarus,
have you forgotten?”

“
Ah, yes. Right.” Greg began
hurriedly dressing, turning his back to Ino. To his surprise, Mr.
Bernardius did not protest when the witch asked Greg to leave.
After pulling his dirty clothes onto his wet body, Greg walked to
the stairs. He glanced back once and saw that Ino was silently
washing a beetle-browed Lazarus. Seeing the ringmaster without his
hat and with his beard half in the water was pretty funny, but Ino
looked slightly angry. But as soon as Greg stepped into the tunnel
leading up to the back room of the bar, he heard a loud splash and
a woman’s giggle.