Firetale (25 page)

“
I’ve never seen a night so
long

When time goes crawling
by
.”

Hank Williams
, “I’m So Lonely I Could
Cry”

After Greg left, Martha’s days and nights
were full of loneliness. At first she found things to do, little
things she had put off. But when everything was done and redone,
Martha was alone in her trailer. The circus was still moving from
town to town, but not performing. Tents lay folded, poles remained
dismantled and packed. If a curious teenager or a tramp wandered
into the camp, Pietro politely explained to them that the circus
was closed, and no one could steal a glance at the monsters for
free. Martha had always enjoyed participating in the advance team,
traveling to towns where she could see how people there lived. She
would discuss the towns and the people with Greg, but with no
performances, there was no need for posters or persuasion, and
Martha, as well as the other mongrels, did not go beyond the circus
lot.

Greg and Lazarus
had not come back,
and there was no one to talk to. Pietro was in charge while Mr.
Bernardius was away, but the archivist was always busy with
something, and doing two jobs was difficult for him. The invariably
good-natured Pietro was still smiling, but his smile had grown
tired.

Blanche and Black became even
gloomier than usual.
The ogres slept during the day, and at night they patrolled
the camp with oil lamps, which in their huge hands seemed no bigger
than fireflies. Martha knew they were not just scaring away
onlookers and vagrants, but were expecting the Judge to spring a
surprise. But Caius seemed only to tease them. Sometimes he did not
reveal himself, and sometimes he stopped his van about a hundred
meters from the camp, leaving it clearly visible. Most inhabitants
of the circus were indifferent to the Judge’s tricks, but Pietro
and the ogres were exhausted and irritated. In one of his rare
conversations with Martha, the archivist even admitted that he
feared that if Caius continued to unnerve the brothers, they would
fly off the handle and give the Judge an excuse to deliver a
verdict. Martha began spending more time in the company of the two
ogres to calm them down.

Days became anxious and, because
of that, even longer. Martha thought about Greg
. She worried about Lazarus and
pondered what had prompted Zinno’s betrayal. She remembered how the
dwarf had always looked for opportunities to talk to her, coming
around when Greg was not there. It always seemed that he was
looking to find a friend in her, a person who would not laugh at
his ugliness, and she was always affable and genuinely nice to him.
But what if he had seen more than a friend in Martha, and so had
betrayed Greg? The thought saddened Martha, but she did not feel
hatred toward Zinno, only sympathy. She knew that if Zinnober
repented and came back, she would forgive him. She knew that the
real power was not in Lazarus’s immortality and not in Greg’s fire.
The real power was in forgiveness. If you can forgive, then you are
stronger than those who hurt you. Recalling Zinno, Martha did not
know that the dwarf was much closer than she could have
imagined.

Like the Judge, Zaches relentlessly
followed the circus. Astaroth sent him to watch and wait for the
return of Lazarus and not to reveal his presence. But even without
his master’s order, Zaches would not meddle in the circus. The
Pactum forbids demionis causing any harm to humans but does not
regulate their relationships with each other. Nothing would prevent
Blanche or Black from unscrewing the dwarf’s head if they wanted
to. Especially now, since Lazarus was not around.

It was difficult to follow the
circus without revealing himself, especially if Pietro chose some
vacant lot for the encampment without a single tree or
hillock. Sometimes
Zaches found boys who wanted to have a look at a traveling circus.
He would tell them where it was and ask them to tell him everything
they saw there. He told them to look carefully to make sure there
was no tall old man with a long gray beard and top hat. The most
high-spirited boys managed to see some of the monsters, which they
excitedly told Zaches about, but most were chased off by two giants
in bowler hats, one gray giant, and one green. Sometimes boys told
him about seeing a strange car with a creepy man in it near the
circus, and that bothered Zaches. The Judge was pushy and
unpredictable, and this scared Zinno so much that he sometimes
arranged an observation point much farther from the camp than
usual. He had no doubt that the Judge felt his presence, but for
some reason Caius showed no interest in him.

The Judge
didn
’t care
about Zaches because he was pursuing a much larger prey. Lazarus
and the fire magician had disappeared, and no matter how hard Caius
tried to use his sense, he couldn’t find them. They were obviously
too far away. But Lazarus would come back, the Judge had no doubt.
The circus did not perform without its ringmaster, which meant the
mongrels were waiting for their leader. The Judge was sure the
ringmaster would come back without the mage. And he had no doubt
that he would force Lazarus to confess that he had hidden Greg. The
Judge did not book hotel rooms; he lived, slept, and ate in his
van, spending most of his time watching. Caius liked to get in the
hair of the circus inhabitants. What could be better than a
persecuted victim whose mind had become clouded from stress? Once
it seemed as if the two ogres were ready to break, but at the next
night shift they were calm and quiet. Caius was sure the gymnast
girl had a hand in this. He did not understand her secret. He
checked the books he had in the van and recalled his years of
training, but soon resigned himself to the fact that he did not
know what kind of mongrel she was. However, the Judge sensed her in
a special way, as if she wasn’t like others. Usually he felt a
mongrel the same way a bloodhound smells a trail, with his senses,
instincts, and intuition. But he felt the girl with … his soul?
Such thoughts made him weak, and he drove them away. Sometimes he
took a knife in his hands and repented before God for the thought
that his soul could belong to some mongrel. Thus, Caius passed his
days in surveillance, doubt, and repentance, until Lazarus
Bernardius returned to the circus.

To the Judge
’s surprise, the old man did not
come back alone. He brought a beauty in black, and with one glance
at her, Caius remembered that he was not only a servant of God but
also a man. To his even greater surprise and relief, the woman was
not a mongrel. He tried to listen to his feelings, but they were
silent. The Judge had understood that humans were not allowed in
the circus except for the fat archivist, and so he was intrigued by
the appearance of the stranger. Almost all the inhabitants of the
“Lazarus Bernardius’ Circus” were intrigued. Only Pietro turned his
nose up at Ino. Like all archivists, he believed witches were
uneducated autodidacts, disrespecting equally the ancient divine
and diabolical rituals, which they knew only by hearsay. Martha
assailed Ino with questions. Where is Greg? How is he? Why didn’t
he come back? When would he return? Would she be able to see him?
Did he say hello?

Stunned
, Ino asked Lazarus to answer all the
questions and was going to leave, but Bernardius insisted that she
stay, brushing aside Pietro’s timid attempts to express his
discontent. Ino stayed, and she and Lazarus gave Martha all the
details. The girl listened carefully and said, “Sounds good. For
now.”

“
For now?” Ino asked.

“
A few days ago it seemed to me
that I could no longer feel Greg. Now I know that you gave him a
potion. I will feel him again when it ceases to act, or if … if
something happens.”

“
You can feel Greg? Only him or
someone else too?” asked Ino.

“
Only him. I didn’t know about it
before, because he was always here, but when he left, I knew I
could always find him. It’s as if he’s a burning match in a dark
room.”

“
I wonder if he can do the same,”
said Lazarus.

“
I’m not sure,” Ino said. “He, of
course, is a powerful magician. But this girl, she is something
special. I tell you, even I can perceive this, though there is no
magic in me. Next to her I feel like I have wings.”

With the return of Mr.
Bernardius
,
everyone’s days returned to normal, except Martha’s. The circus
started giving performances again, although, to the dismay of the
public, without magic tricks. Fortunately for Lazarus, Ino was in
no hurry to leave. The witch was very interested in Martha and
spent most of her time with the girl. Martha still missed Greg, but
now at least she had someone to talk to.

The Judge and Zaches still
tailed the circus, watching and waiting. Caius once even went
to
a show but
failed to meet Lazarus. Mr. Bernardius, to his great embarrassment,
felt some relief that Greg was no longer in the circus. Ino was
close, and the object of the Judge’s interest was away. The
presence of Caius, sometimes invisible, sometimes obvious,
occasionally clouded Lazarus’s mood, but over his long life the
ringmaster had learned how to bear difficulties.

Everything was going well.

Until one night Martha
woke up in pain. She
felt she was twisted, stretched, pierced, and hammered. Drowned and
suffocated. Shot and burned. Stomped and rubbed into powder. She
could not identify the source of her pain. It hurt so much that for
a moment it seemed as if she had passed the limit of sensibility
and could no longer feel anything. It was almost as if she was
watching someone else. But then the pain came back. Martha could
not scream. Her muscles cramped in a single spasm, and only a faint
rattle came out of her throat. She could not move. Her body was so
paralyzed that she couldn’t even blink.

And then the pain started to
recede, but
was not extinguished. Her body relaxed, and Martha could
examine herself. There was not a drop of blood, not a single
scratch or abrasion. Her skin was still smooth and light, but
covered with a cold sweat.

The pain surged again.

And
then diminished.

Almost extinguished.

And again surged.

And even more.

And more.

And more.

And then began to fade.

And fade.

Fade
…

Pain
seized her in jerks, like blood
spurting from a wound. Blood. Wound. Something had happened to
Greg, Martha realized. Something really bad. She jumped out of bed,
opened the door of the trailer, and ran to where the thread of pain
led, becoming quiet with each passing minute. Quieter and
quieter.

Martha fled
, hoping the pain would stay
with her until she got to Greg.

“
She
calls me Goliath and I wear the David mask.”

Seven Mary
Three
,
“Cumbersome”

Ino brought Greg and Lazarus to
an abandoned building, almost a twin of
the one that housed her bar. Greg was
trying to watch the road, but he finally ceased this pursuit and
quietly fell asleep to the accompaniment of soft chatter between
Lazarus and the witch. When he woke up, Ino’s black pickup was
parked near the front porch of an old one-story building somewhere
in the backwoods.

Greg woke up and glanced
around, still half asleep.
“Where are we? Did we come back?”

“No, my boy
. This is one of my old bars. I
left it ten or eleven years ago. Now none of my clients have any
memory of it. Only I know how to find it.”

“What about me and Mr.
Bernardius?”

“
You’ve been sleeping the whole way, and Lazarus was not
watching the road.” Ino winked playfully at the ringmaster. He had
stopped blushing at the witch’s every word, and he gave her a faint
smile under his mustache. “Besides, I know how to trip up my fellow
travelers.”

Greg
gazed at the house. It was old, but
looked quite strong and surprisingly tidy, as if a crew of janitor
bikers had cleaned it every couple of weeks.

“
Do
not forget that I’m a witch, boys,” Ino said, noting the amazement
of both men. “I know how to scare away rodents and insects from a
house. You will only have to dust, Greg.”

“
Nice.
But no cable TV, eh?”

“
You’d
think Lazarus’s big top was the Waldorf-Astoria,” the witch
answered with a mock sigh.

“
Fair
enough,” agreed Greg. “Well, maybe someone grabbed a stack of
comics at least, no?” A pregnant silence was his answer.

“
If
you want something to do to kill time, you can chop wood for the
fireplace. The generator wasn’t enough for heating even ten years
ago,” advised Ino.

“How long will I be
here?”
Judging by his voice, Greg had already realized the gloomy
prospect of his upcoming habitation in a remote cabin in the
woods.