The Twilight Circus (8 page)

Her sharp ears picked up a guttural half howl. She recognized Otis's gruff voice and loped toward the sound, making a yipping noise in reply. Crescent could see three black wolf shapes silhouetted by the light of the moon. They yipped excitedly, circling each other and snapping at each other's heels, whipping up a frenzy for the night's run. It was not unusual for a she-wolf to be the alpha leader, and there had never been any question from the boys that Crescent would be the boss, although Otis had been a werewolf longer and was older by eighteen months. Ramone, the smallest wolf, acted as lookout; quiet, sensitive Salim was the scout; and Otis was the brains.

Crescent was easily the fastest, and she led them away
from the circus camp to the open spaces of the Champ de Mars. They ran, feeling their energy and power build with each step as they loped out into the parklands. She led the small pack along the border of trees, sniffing the cold air for scents. It was proving disappointing; it seemed it was just too cold for anything to be out. Crescent caught a tantalizing whiff of something promising meat, but it was carrion: the chewed, frozen body of a large rat, its eyes having been taken by whatever had killed it.

Once out of the trees, their mood lifted and excitement returned, although it soon became clear there was no sport to be had. In a moment of madness, Crescent turned tail and made a split decision to head for the frozen streets, her small pack following, inquisitive to find out where she was taking them. Most of the streetlights were unlit these days in a bid to save resources, and they appeared to be headed toward another smell. This time it was gorgeous. It was
alive
. A rich, pungent animal scent filled their nostrils, egging them on, as their great paws flew swiftly across the dark pavements of Paris.

The glorious smell was getting stronger, pulsing with
promise, and Crescent came to a skidding halt by ornate gates flanked by a high wall. A large sign outside said:

She had taken them to the zoo
! Otis hung back, sensing what Crescent had in mind. He bared his teeth at her, warning her not to go any farther. She snarled and trotted away toward the high perimeter wall, then paced up and down, measuring its height. Otis growled again.
Hang on a minute
, he thought, curling his lip and snarling,
this is bad. This isn't my idea of not doing anything stupid. This isn't my idea of not drawing attention to ourselves
.

But Crescent had conveniently forgotten her own words of warning and was eager to break all the rules. Otis stalked her on his belly, licking his lips, tail between his legs, fully aware that Crescent was the alpha wolf. She ran at him, teeth fully bared, daring him to come any closer.
Ramone and Salim fell in behind, showing her their full support, and Otis knew he had lost. They scaled the walls with their strong claws and leaped down easily to the other side, with Otis reluctantly bringing up the rear. By now, the captive animals had been alerted by the angry screeches of the monkeys, who had smelled the werewolves as the pack of four had loped through the gardens. Crescent took no notice as the big cats threw themselves against the bars of their cages, snarling and showing their teeth to ward off these strange intruders who smelled like death. She ignored the warning stamps of the giraffes and rhinos, having no interest in the larger caged animals. Strings of steaming saliva hung from her jaws as she savored the anticipation of the hunt.

A delicious smorgasbord of tastes awaited them in the petting zoo, although their prey was disappointingly easy to catch. Crescent enjoyed three guinea pigs as an appetizer, a slightly gamey-tasting meerkat as her main course, but nothing for dessert—she was saving that for later. The boys had a number of fresh rabbits to start with, and played it safe by having a tasty medley of game birds for their main course. To round off the unexpected but welcome
meal, they ripped a vending machine full of chocolate bars from the wall of the café, and ate all of them still wrapped.

At last, feeling satisfied and full, Crescent and the Howlers retreated back to the Twilight Circus as though they had just been for a bracing run in the park.

Nat's increased appetite was one Wolven trait he couldn't manage to hide from his mum. But most teenage boys were hungry all the time, so Jude wasn't too surprised to see him stuff his face for the better part of an hour that evening.

The food just kept on coming, from the succulent seafood starters (Woody's favorite) to steaks that were cooked to carnivore perfection—hardly at all—so that the blood ran freely and got soaked up in the fries like red gravy. There were twenty-two different side dishes and profiteroles with six different types of chocolate sauce. The famous Spaghetti brothers and their team worked hard behind the scenes to create a feast Nat would never, ever forget. It was almost midnight by the time they had finished eating, and Nat had passed the point of tiredness hours ago. Sitting at the table surrounded by his family
and his best friend, with everyone trying to talk at once, his earlier feeling of unease had passed. In between feeding his face he tried not to stare too much at the more exotic circus people and animals. He spotted Maccabee Hammer minus the aye-ayes, sitting at a table for one. Maccabee was apparently on a diet, for all he had on his table was a glass of red wine—not even so much as a bread roll.

He nudged Woody. “Look,” he said. “Maccabee's still got his makeup on.”

Woody looked over in surprise. “What makeup?” he asked.

“You mean, he really looks that way?” said Nat in astonishment.

“Well,
duh
,” said Woody, his mouth full of custard, “that's the way most vampires look, ain't it?”

Whooooo
! Nat didn't really have anything to say to that. He looked over at Maccabee Hammer again and caught his eye. Maccabee raised his glass and winked.

Flippin' heck
, thought Nat, smiling hastily before he looked away. He didn't know if Woody was pulling his leg or not. Maccabee did have an otherworldly look about
him, but then again so did
most
of the people Nat had seen since he arrived. Over the past months, Nat had learned that humans shared the earth with all sorts of creatures including shape-shifters, so why
not
vampires? Still, Maccabee must be safe—
surely
his granddad wouldn't have given him a job if he wasn't? He was dying for John Carver to hurry up and tell him more about the strange and excellent Twilight Circus of Illusion.

Suddenly, Nat felt himself being lifted high off the floor and onto the broad shoulders of an enormous, handsome Italian man wearing an apron. Beside him was another enormous Italian, also wearing an apron and a huge toothy smile.

“
Angelo! Vincent
!” cried Nat in delight.

“No more big adventures for you, eh, Nat Carver?” said Angelo Spaghetti when he had placed Nat safely on his seat again.

Nat nodded happily. “Too right.” He beamed.

Vincent Spaghetti gently inspected the scars on Nat's throat. “You heal well, my friend.” He smiled. “And no more monsters, eh?”

Monsters
. An unwelcome picture of Lucas Scale popped
into Nat's brain, and despite the fact that Vincent's words were supposed to be comforting, Nat shivered. It was like something had stomped over his grave. He hoped for everyone's sakes that NightShift was wrong and Scale was dead and stayed that way. If they were right, maybe his dreams would warn him. He seemed to be getting more tuned into them lately, even more sensitive than Woody, and he was full Wolven, unlike Nat, who was … well, he was a sort of mongrel now, neither full human nor full Wolven. And he seemed to have inherited his grandmother's second sight, so maybe that was why he was getting “bad vibes,” as his other granddad, Mick, would call them. It seemed longer than just a few months ago that his world had been turned upside down by Wolven and werewolves. The world he had known for thirteen cozy years no longer existed. Stuff was never going to be the same again, that much was a fact, and he had to deal with it.

Suddenly Nat didn't feel so safe. Not safe at all.

When the last plate had been cleared—licked clean, in a few cases—John Carver (or JC, as Nat noticed everyone called him) was ready to talk business. He asked Nat if
he had guessed which performances were an illusion and which were not.

“I don't know,” admitted Nat. “I think I spotted all the real stuff, but some were so crazy, they
must
have been an illusion.”

Nat watched as his grandpa leaned over and pulled out a wad of crisp new euros from Woody's ear. “Was that real?” he asked.

“'Course not.” Nat grinned. “You used to do that when I was little.”

“Sleight of hand,” agreed JC, “but you have to admit, I'm not bad. What about this?” He got up from the table and turned his back to Nat. His feet left the floor and he appeared to levitate a good few inches in the air.

“That's a trick, too,” said Nat. “A good one, but it's a technique. Anyone can learn it.”

“Good lad.” JC beamed, sitting down. “Which act unsettled you most?”

Nat didn't hesitate. “The Surrealias,” he said in a low voice, making sure one of them wasn't standing behind him. “They were real cryptids, right? That wasn't makeup or illusion.”

“Harpies.” His grandpa nodded.

“
Harpies
,” said Nat, his eyes stretching wide. “What on earth are they?”

“Mythic beasts of ancient Greece,” explained his grandpa, “half bird, half woman. Also known as ‘Snatchers,' who allegedly snatched people off the streets and took 'em to their deaths.”

“Nice.” Nat shivered.

JC smiled. “You know yourself not to believe stuff like that. Most of those poor myth folk got an appalling press.”

Nat grimaced. “Yeah, but their faces are really—” he started to say.

“That's only when they're in the air,” interrupted JC. “They look pretty ordinary when they land. Look.”

Nat craned his neck to see where his grandfather's gaze rested.

A slim young girl stood talking animatedly to a group of people at the far end of the tent. A pair of iridescent, purply-green wings folded neatly at her shoulders.

“Yeah, dead ordinary apart from the
wings
,” said Nat bemusedly.

“Pure victims of prejudice,” mused his grandpa. “Their
only crime was to swoop out of the sky and steal food from people.”

“Like
really
big seagulls,” piped up Woody.

“I
knew
their wings had to be real,” said Nat. “I bet other people in the audience thought so, too.”

JC shrugged. “People like us who've been exposed to people who are different don't have a problem believing. But the majority of humans know nothing of the supernatural world. As long as they get value for their money and a pleasurable thrill from what they see, or what they
think
they see, they're happy and we're happy,” he said. “I tell them they are about to see the most incredible things they will ever experience, that all the illusions are
real
. But their modern, unimaginative brain will dismiss what their eyes see as impossible. Therefore they will remember it as a fantastic, but explainable, illusion.”

Double bluff
, thought Nat, and grinned delightedly.

“Apart from that small thing, we're like any other circus,” said JC. “We treat each other as family and we look out for each other. Any unlikely trouble from anyone outside and we move on. We trust our people not to draw attention to us. And like Woody, they use their
gifts for the good of others, never for the Dark Side.”

Nat thought that sounded like just about the coolest thing he had ever heard. “So … er … Maccabee Hammer is safe, then?” he asked, relieved.

JC laughed. “Most vampires are,” he said. “It's just the odd few you've got to watch out for. It's very old-fashioned to slurp human blood nowadays, not to mention awfully hard work. Unfortunately there are a few old-style vamps who enjoy spoiling it for all the others.”

“So most of the circus is made up of shape-shifters and cryptids?” asked Nat.

His grandpa nodded. “And then we have the waifs and strays, asylum seekers or some people who are simply on the run.”

Nat was silent.
Nothing simple about being on the run
, he thought.

Woody was having trouble staying awake, and his huge jaw-unhinging yawns were catching. People were beginning to drift away, calling their good nights.

Nat finally admitted to himself that he could probably sleep for a week, but he felt too full and cozy to move. His
mum and dad were wrapping themselves in their layers in readiness for the walk back to their trailer, and Nat pulled himself sleepily to his feet.

He was just pushing back his chair when he saw Crescent and the Howlers appear. He nudged Woody and they both stared. Crescent's normally immaculate hair looked as though it had been pulled through a number of bushes backward
and
forward. Her jeans were ripped and she had mud skid marks on her thick padded jacket. The rest of the Howlers didn't look any better. Ramone was picking what appeared to be fur from his teeth, and Otis had dried blood on his chin. Salim had a glazed, rather guilty look in his orange eyes.

“
Hey
!” snapped Crescent. “Why didn't you save us any dessert?”

While Nat Carver and his Wolven buddy were preparing for their journey to Salinas in the south of France, Alexandra Fish had spent the day stalking and staking an ancient vampire nest that had apparently been dormant, but had now woken up after two hundred years. The vampires had been holed up in the basement of an old bank in Threadneedle Street in London, and Fish had been horrified to see so many in one place at a time. She hadn't been alone in this mission—trainee agent Jack Tully had
sort
of helped, although he hadn't really developed the stomach for such gory work. He spent most of the day trembling and being sick every time it was his turn to hammer in a stake. He faffed about with it for so long that Fish had snatched it off him, afraid that dusk would come before they had finished, and the vampires would wake
up. Then she and Jack Tully would've been undead meat, depending on how severely they were bitten.