Flesh Circus (5 page)

“Papa Legba!”
I had to shout to hear myself through the volume of noise the victim was producing, gabbling and screaming.
“Papa Legba! Papa Legba close the door! Papa Legba close the door! PAPA LEGBA CLOSE THE DOOR!”

Silence fell, sharp as a knife. My blue eye—the left one, the smart one—watered. The ether swirled, the sensitized fabric
of the room resounding like a plucked thread. Everything halted, droplets of crystallized water hanging in the air—Avery,
chucking a bottle of holy water at the victim, whose mouth was open in a trapped, contorted scream.

Well, at least Ave was thinking. Holy water’s far from the worst ally in a situation like this.

The room filled with a colorless cigar-smoke fume. I tasted rum, thrown back hard against the palate, and spat, spraying the
air. A silver nail ran through me from crown to soles, and I remembered Mikhail’s pale face after my first introduction to
this type of magic.

Be careful it does not eat you alive, milaya,
he’d said.
These sorts of things do.

The victim toppled, a long slow fall to the greasy linoleum floor. Before he hit I was on him, my aura sparking in sudden
swirling darkness despite the flood of sunlight rushing through the windows. The shape of the things inhabiting him rose like
smoke—three small humanoid forms, weaving in and out of each other. There was a high chilling childish laugh, and a gabble
of weirdly accented Spanish.

“Usted va a pesar de que, bruja.”
For a moment I saw them—little boy and little girl, both with crystalline eyes and bowl-cut black hair, the girl in a shift
and the boy in a brown loincloth. The shape between them was androgynous, melting first into the girl’s body, she mutated
into the boy, and the third shape whisked them both back out of sight, receding down a long tunnel. The sound of a door closing,
sharp and firm, echoed through shocked air.

I sagged. The victim was unconscious, his face slack and empty. “Ogoun,” I whispered. “Legba, Ogoun, thank you.
Muchas gracias.
Thank you very much.”

“What. The. Hell?” Avery didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to.

“It’s bad news.” I glanced at Saul, who hadn’t moved from the door. He leaned forward, though, tense and expectant, his dark
eyes not leaving me. He was pale under his coloring, and I found out I was still smelling like rotting goop.

I couldn’t
wait
to get home and take a shower.

“I got that much.” Avery crouched gingerly. I let go of the victim, who slumped to the floor, breathing heavily. “That smelled
like cigars. And… rum?”

“Put him in a holding tank downtown. Get me a file on him, too. I need two headshots.” I straightened. Every muscle in my
body cried out in pain, then subsided into a dull howling. “Keep the door bolted. Watch him. If you have to, buzz me again.”

“Great. Okay.” Ave visibly restrained himself from asking me why, and I checked. I get so used to dealing with one thing after
another that sometimes letting someone else in on the situation doesn’t occur to me. But Ave would do his job better if he
knew what he was dealing with.

“You’ve never seen a
loa
before? An
orisha?
”

“Holy crap.” His eyes got really wide, and he eased back a few steps, as if it was catching. “That was a—”

“Not a normal one, no.” I cast a critical eye over the apartment. “Get going. He won’t stay knocked out forever, but you should
be able to get him downtown. If he wakes up in the back of the car and gives you trouble, smack him in the face with holy
water and keep repeating a Hail Mary or something.”

“I’m
Protestant.
”

For Christ’s sake, like that matters.
“Then recite the Nicene. Or the goddamn Wheelwrights lineup, whatever works.” I straightened. “Go on. I’m going to look around.”

“What for?”

“For signs of what he’s mixed up in. You don’t just trip and fall and get a spirit in you, you know.” Even Possessors had
to spend weeks of effort to worm their way into a human host.

“Ha ha. I suppose you’re not going to help me carry him?”

“Saul will.” I glanced over at my Were again. He nodded slightly, and his jaw was set. I couldn’t think why, until something
warm and stinging dropped into my eyes. “Shit.” I touched my forehead, discovered a shallow slice. “I’m bleeding.” I actually
sounded surprised.

Avery rolled his eyes. “Hanging around you is a never-ending adventure.”

It’s that way for me too.
“Shut up and get this guy locked up before he does anything else.”

Bare fridge, bare cupboards—only a can of refried beans and a paper bag of Maseca, as well as a bottle of vinegar, for some
reason. Threadbare clothes, two uniform shirts with the victim’s name embroidered on them. A pair of busted sneakers in the
closet. It was like a monk’s cell.

I poked at the remnants of the cot. Was standing, staring at the twisted curlicues of metal and sharp sheared-off ends, when
Saul reappeared, closing the door with a slight click. “Anything?”

“Nothing. If he’s a follower, he’s got it well hidden.”

“That wasn’t a Possessor.”

“Nope, it wasn’t. It was an
orisha.
Or a
loa.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Whatever branch of magic this guy’s into—”

“He didn’t smell like magic.” Saul paced forward, stopped at my shoulder, and looked down at the mess of the broken bed. “Why
didn’t it cut the leather?”

“Leather was once living. And it has a greater elasticity when it comes to that kind of load. No, he didn’t smell like magic.
And the Twins don’t usually take people without—”

“The Twins?”

“Yeah. You’ve heard of voodoo, right?” I glanced up. He looked blank. I tried again. “Santeria? Candomblé?”

“Santeria? A little. Popular down in the barrio.” A shadow of a grin eased the tension in his face. He hadn’t even had time to smear warpaint along his beautiful cheekbones,
we’d been running so hard and fast. “I suppose now isn’t the time to admit I’m behind on my reading.”

This is why Weres run backup—they don’t have the breadth of knowledge a hunter does. They’re busy with their own spirits,
their own particular sorceries. They rarely mess around with human magics.

Or human predators.

“Well, forget what you’ve seen in the movies. Voodoo is different. People don’t just make bargains with hellbreed—there’s
a bunch of other inhuman intelligences out there. They make contact for all sorts of reasons. We have things spirits want,
they have things we want, and everybody trades.”

“Got that. So, voodoo in particular? Santeria? Candomblé?” His pronunciation wasn’t off by much.

“Basically they interact with the same
species
of intelligence, but not the same
groups.
There’s some crossover, but they’re like different families. Spirits halfway between us and God, they say.” I had to choose
what to tell him, boiling a complex subject down to a few sentences. “They’re not from Hell, and generally a practitioner
is safe from being contaminated by a Possessor.” I frowned down at the shattered bed. “Though they’re not immune to physical
harm from a hellbreed. Hell generally doesn’t mix with voodoo.” Now I was thinking out loud, good to do with him in the room.

“That’s not what’s bothering you, though.” His fingers touched my hip. He crowded a little closer, his heat wrapping around
me. It felt nice.

I let out a long breath. “What’s bothering me is that the
loa
don’t step in where they’re not invited. At least, not without a good reason. And that was the Twins. At least, I’m reasonably
sure it was one of their aspects.”

“Bad news?”

Well, not particularly good news.
I shrugged. “We’ll see. If he was mixed up in something, we’ll find out. I’ll pick up the file from Avery and—”

“Dinner first?” It wasn’t like him to interrupt me.

I was tired, my head hurt, and I smelled like death warmed over. “Dinner first,” I agreed, scrubbing at the quick-drying blood
on my face with my free hand. “This doesn’t look right. It makes my weird-o-meter tingle like mad.”

“That’s saying something. Come on. Let’s close this up and go home.”

“In a second.” I gave him a squeeze, freed myself, and checked the small bathroom. A bar of coal-tar soap in the ringed bathtub;
toothbrush, box of baking soda, and a straight razor in a ceramic mug next to the sink.

The razor was a nice one, antique. Had to be 1920s, if my guess was good. A black scale with mother-of-pearl inlay, and a
well-preserved steel, sharp as a suicide’s whisper. I flicked it open, saw the shadow of blue swirling under the surface of
the metal. I blinked, and it was gone.

Now that’s interesting.
I closed it carefully, dug in my pocket for a Ziploc baggie, and found one. Slid the straight razor in and sealed it.
I wonder…

“What have you got there?” Saul said from the door.

“Clue.” I slipped the razor in my pocket, turned. My coat brushed the sink, and the mug clattered down into its rusted bowl,
spilling the toothbrush as well. “Shit.”

“Which one? Clue or shit?” It was a pale attempt at humor, but one I appreciated.

“The former, catkin. Come on, I’m hungry.”
And I need to work some of these nerves off. Maybe you’ll help me with that.

“Mh.” He let me out of the tiny, tiny bathroom. Hot air soughed through the broken windows. “Sure made a mess.”

“Can’t have an exorcism without breaking a few beds. If he’s clean we’ll figure something out.”

“And if he’s not?”

I didn’t have to work to sound tired. “Then a smashed-up apartment is the least of his worries.”

D
ust swirled like oil, covering my city in waves. Autumn was moving across the mountains, the nights getting chillier and the
days only slightly less hot. Soon the thunderstorms would start rolling in. But for now the far hills were tawny, and the
clouds only stayed, threateningly, in the distance.

I hit the ground hard. Drew my knees up and shot my bare feet out, using the momentum to fuel a leap, propelling myself up.
Whirled, my hand shooting out; he avoided it with a liquid jump to the side. My hand turned into a blade, chopped down.

He caught my wrist, brown fingers locking, and twisted, pulling back as he dropped into a crouch, swinging his center of gravity
down and back. My arm almost yanked out of its socket, his foot smacked into my midriff as he hit the mats on his back, and
I flew. Twisted in midair, doubling on myself like a gymnast, and landed a bare half-second before he was on me, a fast hard
flurry of strikes and parries. Each one pushed aside, combat like a dance, no more than the barest touch needed to redirect,
to score a hit, pulled at the last fraction of a second.

A hunter relies on firepower and sorcery to even the playing field. Still, we never fight Weres, even rogues. They’re just
too quick, too powerful, too graceful. They have no corruption, like in a hellbreed, that a human can latch onto and track.

I’ve wondered about that. I wonder about a lot of things, the more I work this job.

I’m harder to hit now, and a hell of a lot harder to hurt. And it was times like this that the bargain seemed a better thing
than just a stopgap measure until I could figure out how to send Perry screaming back to Hell.

Hard.

Saul drove me across the length of the sparring room, dying sunlight falling liquid through the windows, sweat on both of
us and the sounds of deadly serious mock-combat echoing. I stamped my back foot down hard, dipped, and spun as he advanced
on me, taking his legs out from under him. He hit hard. I leapt and had my fist drawn back, my other hand tangled in his silver-scarred
shorn hair.

“Give up?” I asked, sweetly.

A fine sheen of sweat highlighted each plane of his face. He blinked, a cat’s quick flicker of eyelids. “You haven’t won yet.”

I grinned, lips pulling back from teeth. “Wanna keep going? Best two out of three, or should we take this somewhere else?”

“Don’t know if you’re ready.” An answering grin, but his teeth kept well hidden.

Oh, I’m ready.
I was ready for more than just sparring.

He heaved up, I pushed him back down. A few more seconds of wrestling ended with me still on top for once, the scar burning
against my wrist and hot strength spilling through my bones. “It’s looking like you’re the one not ready, catkin.”

“Just biding my time.” He surged again, I pushed him down and realized my mistake a split second too late as his knees came
up, my balance off by a critical fraction. A confused welter of movement, his forehead hit me in the mouth, and we rolled.
Judo took over, and I began fighting in earnest. Reflex turned me into a dangerous snake writhing in his arms, but Saul knew
how to handle this.

He always did. Or at least, he always
had.

Stinging salt, my body suddenly just a welter of reaction. Saul held me down, silver chiming as his head dipped. Smell of
leather, of cherry Charvil smoke, the good scent of a healthy male and the dry sleekness of catfur. We became one body with
twisting limbs, rolling and seeking advantage, the floor a hard sea we only touched the surface of.