The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files) (3 page)

Chapter Five

I learned a lot about circus folk that day.

First of all, they drink, and drink hard. Especially the side-show wonders. I met the Man of Bones when he stumbled out of his tent, went down on all fours at my feet, and vomited between my boots. I was amazed at the volume of liquid he expelled, given the emaciated state of his spindly frame.

The circus master kicked the Man of Bones unceremoniously in his gut. “And here we find the Man of Bones, who has terrified audiences from the Sea to the Wastes,” said Thorkel, as he sent the scuttling wretch away with a second kick squarely on his backside. “A living skeleton, whose grinning skull will haunt your dreams forever.”

I nodded and scribbled in my notebook. It didn’t seem polite to point out that the Man of Bones was still entirely covered in skin.

We met the Queen of the Elves next. She wore a moth-eaten flannel gown over her spider-webs. A pair of mismatched work boots adorned her dainty feet. She puffed on an enormous cigar between swigs of dark brown liquid gulped from a dirty jar.

“Go to Hell,” she opined, before sprawling lengthwise on a bench.

“Men have traveled the world to pay homage to the Queen of the Elves,” said Thorkel. The Queen responded with a raised middle finger. “Her beauty and charm are unmatched in all the mortal world.”

“She wears flannel as only an Elf could,” I added. Thorkel’s brow furrowed beneath his immaculate top-hat.

“That is to say, her ethereal beauty blinds, so dazzling is she to gaze upon,” I said, quickly. Thorkel rewarded me with a humorless jackal’s grin.

We passed a stage, upon which a bleary-eyed thin man in an old-fashioned long-tailed coat and fancy high-heeled gentleman’s boots waved a short black wand over a yawning young woman.

“Two, three, raise the cloth,” said the man. The young lady raised a dirty bed sheet up over her head, and the magician snapped his fingers.

The cloth dropped, revealing an empty stage. I heard a distinct thud from beneath it, and a muffled feminine curse.

“You forgot the damned mat again,” shouted the young woman.

The magician cussed and yelled for a runner.

“Here we have Malus the Magnificent, master of magic,” said Thorkel, with a flourish. “Prepare to be amazed as he confounds and mystifies!”

A section of the stage floor lifted and the young woman emerged. “Bruised is all I’m getting lately,” she said. “Malus needs to lay off the hooch.”

“An accomplished illusionist, Malus the Magnificent fills audiences with delight,” I said. “Performing perilous feats of magic unseen since the days of the Kingdom.”

“I see my coin is not wasted,” said Thorkel. He smiled, his perfect white teeth wet and gleaming.

“You do have a remarkable cast of performers,” I said. “Not at all what I expected.”

We passed Gogor the Troll, who snored peacefully beneath a pile of hay.

“And what were you expecting, Mr. Bustman?” asked Thorkel, idly swinging his cane as we walked.

“Well, the old stories. They described carnivals as more…salacious. Carnal, if you will.”

Thorkel nodded. “Dancing girls, side-shows of a decidedly immoral nature? Gambling, fighting, that sort of thing?”

“So the old stories say.”

“Perhaps, in the old days, other carnivals catered to a less refined audience. But Dark’s Diverse Delights is clean, wholesome enjoyment, for the whole family.” Thorkel graced me with another smile. “Especially the children. We love children, you see. Love them.”

I nodded amiably as I scribbled. “Sounds wonderful, Mr. Thorkel. Just what Rannit needs these days.”

He reached into his waistcoat and withdrew a pair of bright red tickets. “Come and see,” he said, as I took them. “Bring your wife. Bring a friend. I promise you will never forget your time with us.” Someone called his name, and he tipped his hat to me. “I have neglected my duties long enough. Pray wander as you will, speak to whom you would. Good day, sir.”

He withdrew.

I wandered as I willed, spoke to whom I would. I saw no signs advertising the presence of a living dead girl. I didn’t ask about her by name. If anything the Ordwalds told me was true, asking was more likely to earn me a beating, or worse.

Halfway down the midway, on the right, was a long narrow tent festooned with wind-chimes fashioned from wire and bones. HALL OF HORRORS, read the placard over the entrance. NO ADMITTANCE TO PERSONS OF MEEK CONSTITUTION.

A clown snored by the ticket box. I passed by him, meek constitution and all, and ducked inside.

They hadn’t lit the candles. But enough light leaked into reveal two rows of stuffed and mounted monstrosities. A DRAGON, read the first marker to my right. Behind the sign lurked a ten-foot-tall assemblage of bones tied together with wire. The dragon’s fore claws were raised in menace, its head hanging over me, its jaws opened wide for a killing bite. It was only after my eyes adjusted to the dark that I saw the cracked plaster holding the beast’s spine together and recognized carved wooden bones wired in with the rest.

Even less impressive was the mottled gray cemetery ghoul chained to the wall. Yes, its rotten limbs twitched in a feeble effort to escape, but the loud ticking of the clockwork mechanism behind the body robbed the display of any real menace. Every twenty-two seconds, the ghoul turned its head and extruded its long, slimy tongue before resuming its original posture and starting to twitch all over again.

Maria the Snake Headed Woman might well be a display of a large woman’s corpse and a dozen long dead serpents, but none of the various parties had met until an indifferent taxidermist’s needle stitched them all together. I daresay Egan the Crocodile Boy and Engorgia, Mistress of the Dark were the products of the same method, if not the same taxidermist. Too, the unfortunate Engorgia’s horns were held in place by means of a rather obvious pair of nails.

There was a unicorn. I suspected more than a hint of donkey in its recent lineage. A coiled gray bulk labeled
Serpentia, Terror of the Sea
floated in a great tub of old beer. Toward the back was a towering thing of coils and wires which claimed to deliver ‘Powerfulle Jolts of Life giving Spirit Essence.’

A peek behind the machine revealed a hidden hand-turned crank and a stool for a clown. I gave the crank a whirl, and blue sparks arced from the machine’s whirling innards. If they imparted me with any life giving spirit essence, powerful or not, I didn’t feel it.

Magog the Were-Bear, Slithins the Snake with a Man’s Head, Carabel the Wood Sprite—all bore the same sad signs of being hauled and patched and painted, year after year, mile after hard carnival mile.

I slipped out of the Hall or Horrors through the back way, stepping over one of the trunk-like limbs of the Ravenous Cave Hydra, which was bleeding tufts of sooty cotton from a foot-long gash down its mottled side.

I returned to the midway and watched as Malus the Magnificent gobbled down a sandwich. At that, he was surpassingly proficient.

When next I passed the Queen of the Elves, she’d rolled off her bench and was face-down in the hay-covered mud. I paused to spread her tattered robe over her hindquarters and drew a warning growl from a passing Ogre.

“I’ll quote you on that,” I said, and then I hurried away.

I stepped in mastodon shit on the way back to Rannit and the stink followed me all the way home.

It was late afternoon, the sun just beginning to sink behind the rooftops along Middling Lane. Darla and Gertriss sat on our porch, huddled close together, deep in conversation.

The man on the roof gave the lightning rod a final blow with his hammer and waved his ragged hat at me. The lightning rod he’d installed was crafted in the shape of a capering devil, its fists raised toward the sky.

“Welcome home, darling,” said Darla, as I clambered down out of the cab. “Look what I got us!”

I paid the cabbie. Shango started down his ladder. Gertriss moved her chair away from Darla’s and waved at me. Her smile showed late and left early.

“Hello, lovely,” I said, opening our gate. The iron hinges squealed. I keep them that way. Sometimes business follows me home. I winked at Gertriss as Darla came sprinting forth to greet me.

Her nose wrinkled three long strides away. “You have a certain odor about you, dearest,” she said, smiling. “Have you taken up animal husbandry?”

I made the three paces and caught her up. “I’m firmly against animals marrying,” I said. One of us kissed the other, I can’t say who. “Aren’t they burdened enough already?”

“You beast,” she said. She laughed and held her nose. “Honey, what is that smell?”

“Mastodon,” I said. “No, really,” I added when she raised her right eyebrow. “On my honor as a Captain. This is the smell of mastodon dung, my dear, applied to the sole of a new pair of Rush Street leather brogans. Earthy, isn’t it?”

“They’ll have to be burned,” she replied. “Buried too. Leave them here. Come say hello to Mr. Shango. He says you’ve met.”

Mr. Shango approached, wiping his knobby hands on a rag. “Evening, Mr. Markhat. I’m all done here.”

“Yes you are,” I said. If Darla caught the edge in my voice she didn’t let it show. “How much are you charging, today?”

“Tell you what.” He turned and looked up at the pointed steel rod he’d attached to a gable. A thick copper line ran from the rod down across my wall and into the ground. The line was secured with neat copper straps, spaced equally all the way down. “You pay me what you think it’s worth. And you tell your neighbors my name.”

Had it been earlier in the day, and had Darla not been smiling up at me like she’d just produced a puppy in a basket, I might have returned Mr. Shango’s lightning rod by way of shoving it up his britches.

But it was late. My feet stank and hurt, in that order. I hadn’t had lunch, and my plans for the evening involved another hike up and down the trail to Dark’s Diverse Delights.

So I fished in my pocket and when my fingers closed around the silver crown coin Ubel Thorkel had given me, I tossed it right at Shango’s sweaty face.

He caught it, and he smiled.

“I admire craftsmanship,” I said. He pocketed the coin with a nod.

I stepped out of my ruined shoes. “I’d be much obliged if you’d take these with you,” I said. “You can wear them next time you’re out past Curfew. Even the thirstiest vamp will turn tail and run.”

Shango guffawed, but took the shoes. His cart squeaked and rattled all the way down the street.

Darla smiled at me, an unspoken question in her eyes. I’d just given the man a month’s good wages. I didn’t regret it. The last time a mysterious stranger had given me a coin of considerable worth it had taken me walking out of Time. I wasn’t eager to repeat the process.

“Let’s sit for a bit,” I said, offering her my elbow. “Now, what are you ladies plotting?”

I took a seat on the porch. Darla returned to hers. Gertriss stayed put.

“We were just talking,” said Gertriss. “Nothing important. What’s this about Troll horses? Did you make it out to the carnival?”

Neither of the cups of tea beside their chairs had been touched. Neither steamed.

I nodded. “Made it to the carnival, met the carnival master, even got the grand tour,” I said.

“No sign of the Ordwald girl?” Gertriss saw Darla’s brief look of confusion and filled her in on the case.

“No sign at all,” I said, when she was done. “The carnival master was friendly. Talkative, even. Of course he mistakenly thought I was a reporter, but I can’t be expected to correct every mistaken belief people adopt.”

“Of course not,” said Darla. “So. What’s this carnival like?”

“Oh, it’s a wholesome, harmless diversion, I said. “A place where simple pleasures can be safely pursued by apple-cheeked children and their plain, homespun parents. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the midway is manned by cherubs.”

Darla cocked her head. “So you don’t think they took this man’s daughter?”

“I think I wasn’t the only one lying,” I said.

Darla grinned. “So we’re going to the circus?”

I nodded. “Gertriss. You up for an evening of thrills, chills and the stink of mastodon crap?”

She shrugged and crossed her legs. A single man might have dropped to one knee right then and fumbled for a ring, but I have my Darla, and my Darla has her gun.

“Sure, boss. Can I borrow an outfit, Darla? This one isn’t right for walking.”

Darla grinned and clapped her hands. “We’re going to the circus! I have the perfect outfit, hon. How many guns are you carrying?”

Inside they went, tittering like schoolgirls while counting off the number of hidden vampire handguns they’d be concealing beneath their skirts.

Left alone on the porch, I picked up a cup of cold tea, drank it down, and watched my new lightning rod cast a shadow, long and thin like a knife, out across the street.

Darla opted for a long black skirt, a dark blue blouse, and a black jacket. Gertriss chose a similar outfit, with a green top to complement her eyes. Both wore black boots and dark coats, and neither clanked when they walked, though I suspected each bore a half dozen weapons of one sort or another.

I found a pair of boots that didn’t require polishing and changed my tan hat for a black one. I had a Mark Six in a fancy shoulder holster that didn’t show a bulge through my coat, a small two-shot Mark Nine in my right pocket, ammunition hidden inside my belt, and my old Army knife in my right boot.

I felt prepared to face down even the surliest of ferry clowns.

We took our time. I didn’t want to arrive until there was already a crowd. Another conversation with the carnival master wasn’t worth the risk of being exposed as a finder.

Funny thing, about the other finders the Ordwalds had hired. I’d learned that two hadn’t ever shown up to report or be paid. A third had refunded their advance and shown them his door.

I didn’t intend to join the ranks of the missing.

So we dined before heading for the wilderness. The ladies got admiring stares, while I got glares that openly questioned my worthiness to be in such delightful company.

“Luck beats skill every time,” I announced in response to one such pointed look. Darla poked a fork in my direction.