JavaElemental (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} bloodymary) wrote in ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} carnival,@ 2008-06-24 05:00:00 |
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Madness
“Houston, we have a problem.” Alice stood there, smoking a cigarette. The clown was standing a little near for comfort, glaring down at her. The Shadow had pried Herself up from the ground and was hovering over the corpse, up to Her black shoulder in the corpse's mouth, rooting around in the innards.
Alice glanced over at the clown. “We need to destroy this body. And with a quickness.”
Clay grunted. “We got people for that. Come on.”
Alice plugged her cigarette between her lips and snapped her fingers. The Shadow pulled free of the corpse and flopped back into place on the ground. Alice drew the cigarette from her lips and breathed out a long plume of smoke. “Lead on.”
* * *
Two paramedics knelt in the ditch working on the dying driver of the flatbed tow truck. They were surrounded in equipment, working in the light of strobing red and blue flashers, and the spotlights from the ambulance and cops cars.
The cops, for their part, stood up on the road, poking around the truck, speaking quietly into their radios. One, a well-built older man in his middle-forties with the kind of iron-gray hair a man had to earn, was kneeling on the road behind the tow truck, studying the tire tracks.
“Whatcha got, Josh?”
Lt. Josh Benson looked up from the skid marks. “Looks like the guy braked to avoid something.”
The younger cop wandered over, scanning around, over the woods, then back to the field. “Deer, probably.”
“Probably.” Benson stood up, studying the tow truck. He turned, looking into the field, spotted the steaming rock. “This is the truck from that damn carnival.”
“Yeah?” The younger cop followed Benson's pointing finger to the rock in the field. “That the asteroid thingie?”
Benson nodded. “Yeah.”
“Huh. Didn't make it very far, did he?”
“No, he didn't. Is he going to make it?”
The younger cop shook his head. “They're working on him, but . . .”
Benson sighed, rubbing the back of his head. This night was getting longer and longer. “Call another truck. We're going to have to get this one out of the ditch.”
“Yeah, it's on the way. What about the rock?”
Benson glared at it. “I guess we're going to have to get that damn thing out of here, too.”
The activity down in the ditch stilled. Benson and the younger cop turned to look, and the paramedics looked up at them, still kneeling next to the corpse. The two paramedics, a man and a woman, shook their heads. The woman rubbed her face, tossing the breathing bag she'd been using down disgustedly.
“No good?” Benson asked, voice quiet.
The man heaved a sigh. “He's been flat lined for over five minutes. We can't get him back. Something in his guts ruptured, I think. Looks like he hit the steering wheel on his way out the window.”
“We got company.” The younger cop pointed down the road. “I should get the road flares out.”
“Yeah, better.” Said Benson, squinting into the approaching glare of headlights.
The car was slowing, getting over. Benson turned away, ignoring it, tired into his bones. He found himself staring down into the ditch, into the gape-jawed face of a dead man. He shuddered, turning back. The car had stopped, and the driver-side door was opening. A man stepped out. The car's headlights glared into Benson's eyes, turning the new arrival into nothing more than a black form, faceless.
“Something we can do to help?” The man called.
Benson cocked his head, squinting into the light. The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. “No, thanks. We got it in hand.”
“You sure about that?”
Benson started to answer, and then placed the voice. At the same time, the passenger-side door swung open, and a slow cold chill rolled down his spine.
* * *
The sign over the tent read “B.B. Wolfe Presents The Freak Show And Burlesque”. The script was curly and gothic, gold letters on a harlot red sign, spanning out over three different entrances that seemed to lead back into the same voluminous tent. All three entries were closed, two tent flaps tied shut and in the middle, an imposing steel door. There was a sign out front of what Alice took for the main entrance, the door on the right. The little sign read “closed”.
Alice looked the tent over. It had an ominous air even in the top layer of this odd little Carnival, but deeper in Alice could sense the shades of increasingly darker places, the Freak Show growing more and more twisted the farther into the Carnival one went. She glanced around, beginning to wonder if this Dr. Celestine guy had any idea of what, exactly, he had working for his Carnival, here.
The clown was approaching the left hand door. Alice followed behind, eying the tent flap with distinct unease. She stood a little back while the clown thumped his massive fist on one of the framing poles. The tent flap peeked open a bit, revealing a narrow, ratty little face. Alice only caught a glimpse of the young man before the clown rumbled “Send me Gluttony.”
The little face disappeared with a squeak, and the flap fell closed again. They waited a moment, and Alice heard ponderous footsteps approaching the front of the tent. The flap was lifted open, all the way, and Alice got a good look at the monstrosity at the door.
It – she – was bigger than Violent Clay, or at least wider, a huge, quivering slab of leprous white flesh with a cottage cheese texture. She was wearing a spangled red bikini, the top of one if nothing else, because if she was wearing the bottom, Alice couldn't see it. It was lost in the slopping fat rolls. The woman was beyond huge, bigger even than the man at the ticket booth, upwards into the range where they start measuring things in tons. Her head was nothing but jowls and chins sloping down into her chest, which was itself immense, rolling down to her belly, which hung in pendulous folds to her knees, which were lost in hanging, quivering flaps of fat, to her calves, which hung over her swollen ankles, to two surprisingly dainty little feet in spangled red pumps. Her hair was short, a dark, greasy tangle, and her eyes were two piggy little slits nearly lost in the bulges of her cheeks. Her skin was slick with grease and sweat, and the body odor reek of her rolled off in palpable waves. Her breath came in the heavy, pained blowing of a wounded buffalo.
Alice gagged, choked down her gorge.
“There's a body back behind the supply tent. Deal with it.”
The woman licked her lips, piggy little eyes widening slightly. “Fresh one?”
The clown's nose wrinkled, lips pulling back from his teeth in a grimace. “Yeah.”
“Oooo. I'll get the ketchup.”
Alice's stomach did a lazy, queasy roll.
Gluttony glanced her way. “Well, hello there.” Her voice was deep, thick, glutinous. She took a heavy step forward, then another, heaving for breath with each slow step. Alice felt like her feet were stuck to the ground as the woman heaved herself forward, breathing in deep, ragged gusts as she propelled her bulk along. Alice towered over the behemoth, but felt positively tiny and fragile when the thing stood in front of her, as solid and massive as a planet. Gluttony seemed to have her own gravity. “What have we got here?”
Alice stared down at her, the woman's stink coating her throat and tongue. She blinked, and for a second, her vision came clear, and she was looking down not at a Fat Lady, but into a gaping, carnivorous chasm, into endless, aching hunger. Alice's Shadow stirred, the Shadow inside, and Her hunger sharpened in response to Gluttony's presence, as though echoing the Fat Lady's own nature.
Alice ground her teeth and slapped the Shadow back into place. She knew the Shadow's hunger too well, had mastered it too long ago, to be much troubled by it.
Gluttony poked Alice in the chest with one fat, sausage-like finger. “I'm not your Sin, am I? But we've got some others in there. Yes we do.” Her breath was a fetid cloud. “I bet we've got one in there for you.”
Alice was mesmerized by the movement of the woman's livery lips, the jiggle of her cheeks as she spoke.
Gluttony sniffed around Alice's shoulders. “I smell gold. What you hiding in there, little girl? You coming in to visit us after all?”
With a dawning horror, a fine, bright edge of emotion, even more terrible for being something Alice hadn't felt in years, she recognized the woman. Yes. She knew this thing, an echo, an extension of the soul eater at the gates. This heaving blob of a woman housed BB's hunger, and Alice recognized her because she suddenly realized that at some time in the distant, foggy past she no longer remembered, she'd been a similar thing herself, a trapped extension of someone else's monster. She suffered a second of memory, and in it she saw a small, thin, familiar girl, all red-headed curls and flashing green eyes and chubby cheeks. Alice saw the girl weeping and smiling a sweet little smile as scabrous dark tentacles burst up from the ground, little mouths on the ends snatching and tearing at a screaming man before her, crushing and ripping and pulling the man down into the ground.
“You can fuck directly off.” Alice's voice was a shimmery ghost.
Gluttony laughed, and her whole body jiggled as she did, a mass of quivering white Jell-O. She turned on her heel, a slow revolution, and moved off. “Behind the supply tent?”
Violent Clay nodded.
“Mmmmmm.” The woman lumbered away, licking her lips and rubbing her hands together.
“Jesus fucking Christ in a side car.” Alice whispered. “What is this place?”
The clown giggled.
* * *
Benson stood rooted to the ground. He couldn't have said why, but his spine was shot through with ice, and his bowels felt hot and loose, like they were about to let go. His heart beat doubled, and his blood felt full of cold needles. His hand itched to wrap around the butt of his gun.
“Get back in your car, please, sir.” It took him two tries to get the words out. He'd gone cotton-mouthed.
Something cracked loudly and Benson twitched hard. He found his gun in his hand.
“Josh?” The cop next to him grabbed his arm. “What's wrong?”
Benson shook his head, heart slamming in his chest. Both dark forms at the car had turned, looking out in the field. Benson turned, looking out that way as well. There was another loud cracking noise. With the glare in his eyes, Benson couldn't see what was going on in the field, but his gut told him, coiling into tight, hard knots, that something bad was going on.
“Josh? You all right?” The younger cop shook his arm lightly, eyes wide with alarm. “Guys?” He called it over his shoulder to the paramedics. “Guys, c'mere! Josh – Mike, I think Josh is having a heart attack!”
Benson shook his head. The cracking noise came again, with a long, rough, ripping undertone. His lips worked, finally managing, “What is that? What's that noise?”
The the passenger of the car moved around the front, going to the driver's side. For a moment, as she walked in front of the headlights, the passenger was a stark, distinct black form, long, lovely legs, swinging hips and hair. For a moment, Joshua Benson forgot his fear, and then she passed out of the light, and his terror returned tenfold in a freezing rush.
The two forms jumped the shallow ditch, and were out into the field. Benson squinted through the glare. They were headed for the rock. Benson jerked free of the younger cop and the paramedic, moving forward, past the lights. He heard them call his name as he hopped across the ditch, himself, and now, in the darkness, he could see the rock, split in half, smoke rolling thick and heavy out from the crack. “Hey! Hey, you two get back from there!”
He couldn't have said why, but he leveled his gun. He could see the forms well enough now to recognize them for sure, the Freak Show carnie who'd been in the parking lot earlier, the guy with the shady eyes and too-pleasant smile, and the other was a woman, gorgeous, long dark hair, lithe form clothed in a little red dress. Benson glanced from them to the rock as his partner jumped the ditch.
A hand came up out of the crack, fastening on the edge of the rock. The hand was spindly, very white, fingers too long, as though they had too many joints.
“What the hell are they doing --” The younger cop's voice trailed off, eyes growing huge as he spotted the rock. “What --”
“Call for help, Steve. Hurry.”
“Josh --”
“Steve. Help. Now.” Despite his terror, Benson's voice came out hard and calm, the words sharp, firm snaps. He took two steps forward. “Hey! You – Bart! BB!” He leveled the gun, racking the slide back with an unmistakable ratcheting click. “Get away from there! Now!”
BB turned from the rock, where a second hand was flailing out, grabbing the ridge. He was grinning, an ear-to-ear leer full of cheerful good humor. “Lieutenant Benson, is that you? How good to see you again! Just coming to get my property back.”
“Hands up. Step back. Now.” Benson knew he was going to shoot. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew the situation had gone deep south, knew things were profoundly wrong. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if the gun would actually stop the carnie, and couldn't for the life of him think why it wouldn't, but . . . “Both of you! Hands in the air where I can see them. Get back from that thing.”
BB put his hands up, the woman following suit. They were both smiling entirely too much. They took a couple of steps away from the rock, towards Benson, and Benson didn't care for that, either.
“Come on, Lieutenant – I'm just here for what's mine. Rightfully mine, I might add.” The carnie spread his hands out in a harmless, friendly gesture. “No need for the gun, Josh, wasn't it? We're all friends, here.”
A squalling sound issued from the rock, ragged, not quite human. Benson knew all the way to the core of his soul that he absolutely did not want to see whatever was about to crawl up out of the asteroid. He shifted his aim towards the rock, heart hammering so hard he almost couldn't feel the pause between beats. Somewhere behind him, he heard Steve pull his gun as well.
“What the hell's in there, Josh?” Steve's voice was thready, weak. Benson knew if he looked, Steve's gun would be jittering all over the place.
The carnie and his girlfriend were looking over their shoulders, at the hands gripping the edges of the cracked rock. There was a tension in the hands now, harsh little grunts coming out of the split. Something was pulling itself out of the rock.
Please God, Benson prayed. Please don't let me have to see that.
The carnie was staring at the rock, eyes wide and avid, grinning. The woman was still staring at them, smiling her lovely smile. Benson kept his aim steady on them, and in his peripheral vision, saw a set of arms clawing up out of the rock. There was a long, horrifying moan, and the arms tensed, pulling.
Benson shifted his aim to the rock. “Oh God, please don't. Please don't.”
All at the same time, the woman put her hand on her carnie boyfriend's arm, the thing levered itself up out of the rock, and Benson, in a white hot panic, began firing. All at the same time, the carnie turned, mouth opening wide in a howl of rage, the thing toppled out of the rock, and the woman darted forward. All at the same time, Benson thought, Thank-you, I didn't have to see it, and the carnie launched himself at the cops, the woman hot on his heels. Benson kept firing. He kept firing long after the chamber went dry. All he could see was BB's eyes, deep black empty pits.
* * *
Gluttony rounded the corner of the supply tent, saw the feet of the body. A smile spread out on her fat face, bunching her jowls into layers of greasy wrinkles. She thundered slowly forward, heaving and panting for breath, advancing on the corpse. Drool ran in thin ropes down her chins.
She looked down, and let out a low little moan of displeasure. The corpse was swollen, already bloating with death vapors. The stomach, in particular, was profoundly distended, poking roundly up, shirt shoved back by its bulk, hem of the jeans pushed down to make room. The flavor would be spoiled, now.
Still, Gluttony supposed that was why she'd brought the ketchup along. She lumbered forward, raising the red plastic squeeze bottle, and the stomach abruptly split with a wet ripping noise. Gluttony froze in place. Her weight took her two more steps forward. Intestines spilled out of the cavity with a horrible reek.
The intestines writhed. Gluttony blinked, staring, gape-jawed.
Not intestines. Tentacles. The tentacles hooked the ground, and a wet, gray, slug-like thing dragged itself forth from the stinking cavity. It was streaked in blood and shit. Another followed. Then another. Then another.
They had no eyes, but Gluttony could sense them staring at her, somehow, and the tentacles whipped and flailed, and they made a terrible mewling noise. They were hungry. Gluttony could feel it. Their hunger was vast and mighty, surpassing even her own.
“Oh.” She whispered, and her smile came back, slow. “Oh, oh, my poor babies. You're just starving, aren't you?”
* * *
The howl echoed off the sky, a long, loud, sonorous call that rolled out over the field and choked off into a jagged growling snarl. BB jerked his head up from his feeding, listening to the cop gag and moan as he scanned the wood line.
At first all he saw was the yellow eye, and he almost mistook it for a lightning bug until he realized it was embedded in a long gray shadow. The shadow opened its mouth, revealing glistening teeth. It was pacing to the edge of the ditch. It bunched, preparing to leap.
“Oh. Shit.” BB dropped the lieutenant, scrambling back. Somewhere off to his right, the paramedics continued to rip each other's clothes off as Lust feasted on them, and just behind him, the younger cop, who had leaped in front of his partner, lay in a heap, empty eyes smoking. He stumbled over the corpse as the wolf lunged across the ditch, landing with a dull, heavy thud on the dirt road. The growling intensified, a deep, savage, ragged sound, as the wolf stood there, braced in the headlights, tail a perfect rainbow arc, hackles raised, black lips peeled back from sharp teeth.
“Shit. Can't be.” BB kicked back in the field, throwing dirt as he shoved himself up. “Can't be!”
The wolf paced forward, vibrating with the growl, claws throwing hard-packed gravel, and BB heard the grinding crack of bones as the wolf began to twist and stand. In one, two steps it – she – was on her back feet, body warping as she moved, lengthening, gaining and shifting mass, eye growing more human, muzzle shortening, paws lengthening out into taloned hands, back legs still backwards-kneed, but longer, stronger. The half-wolf, half-woman stood on her back legs, threw her head back, and howled.
BB took two steps back, turning. “Fuck.”
His gaze went around the field in a rush, taking it all in. Mary was strong, and she was fast, and she had no business being here, but that was beside the point. She was, and he didn't have a drop of silver on him, but he did have one thing. Mary in her rage was powerful, but she wasn't the brightest thing ever to snarl on two feet.
He had two options. He could get mauled and manage to survive somehow – the “somehow” being the tricky part in this scenario because Mary had always taken him a bit personally – painful in the short term, but immensely rewarding in the long term if he could survive a bite. Or, he could distract her for a few minutes, and -- “Lust!”
He made eye contact with the Sin, and then pointedly turned his stare to the writhing, squalling, white form by the broken asteroid. Lust nodded, and BB turned and ran like hell. He could hear the paws in the dirt, the snarling, as Mary leaped after him.
He needed his breath for running, but BB couldn't quite manage to stop himself from snickering.
The wolf-woman landed next to Benson, and he saw it, and he fully realized that he had just seen a thing that was somehow part woman, part wolf, like fantastic CGI in some horror movie, but it just couldn't quite sink all the way in.
I didn't see that, he told himself, and himself said back, Yes, you did. “Couldn'ta.” He managed the word, a weak shake of his head. His chest was on fire, as though hooks had been shoved down his throat and used to pull his lungs back out. His eyes burned, and his vision was blurry, teary. He had a vague impression of Steve jumping in front of him, shoving him back. He seemed to recall the carnie grabbing Steve, and just looking him in the eyes as Steve choked and gagged and moaned. The carnie had tossed him down in a tumbled heap, and Steve hadn't moved. And then the carnie had grabbed him and . . .
And what? What exactly? Benson couldn't make it come clear in his mind. He lifted his head, slowly. It ached. He glanced around, blinking to clear his vision.
His gun. There was his gun. He reached for it, felt immediately better for having it in his hand. He armed the water out of his eyes and pushed himself over, shoving himself to his knees. The paramedics, Mike and Danielle, were slumped together, unmoving, half-naked. Benson ejected the clip from his gun, managed to fumble another out of his belt, reloaded. Not that the first nine bullets had done him any good, but he felt steadier, more calm, with a loaded gun in his hands. He felt certain he had emptied at least five bullets into the carnie's chest, and he had just kept on, but that couldn't possibly be the case. This was a .9mm. One did not just take five bullets from a .9mm and keep on coming, Kevlar vest, no Kevlar vest, weirdo carnie or not. Life just did not work that way.
Of course, life also did not include howling wolf-women, either, but Benson put that thought out of his mind. He'd just told himself he hadn't seen that, hadn't he?
He turned on his knees, looking around, and spotted the woman, the carnie's pretty girlfriend. She was kneeling next to the rock, reaching for --
-- I don't want to see it! --
-- the thing behind the rock, and Benson got a foot underneath him and stood unsteadily, racking the slide on the gun. He checked the safety, found it off, and started towards the woman. He told himself again and again that he didn't want to see the thing in the rock, and himself answered back in the same calm tone, You might have to. Man up, Josh.
He moved forward, quickly, before he could lose his nerve, and rounded the asteroid, face turned away, and then, with a little sound of dismay, looked dead on at the woman and the atrocity she was kneeling over.
It was a little old man, nude, sexless if not entirely genderless, skin whithered white and sagging in wrinkles, joints all wrong, twisted, as though with arthritis, toothless as his mouth gaped, but his eyes were wide, young, innocent, and pure silver. The woman knelt over him, brushing his face. “There there, it's me, now.” She said gently.
Benson raised his gun. She didn't seem at all aware of him.
“Lady?” The old man's voice was quavery, weak, paper thin, accented with something almost Cockney in tone.
“Yes, it's me.”
“Lady?”
Benson leveled the gun at the old man, hesitant now that he'd seen it, because it just wasn't all that awful, now, was it? Weird, sure, but just some diseased old man, a little on the senile side from the look of him, and he must have imagined that whole weird thing with the rock splitting open . . .
“Lady? Izzit you, Lady?”
The old man blinked, peering up at the woman, reaching a shaking hand up to her face. His smile faded, slowly, and his demented silver eyes narrowed. “That's not the Lady.” His voice was a hot little hiss.
She was hunting, Mary was hunting, and it was good, it was so good, and the prey ran, and she chased him, moving in a long graceful lope. She'd almost forgotten this form, its eerie grace and power, and she ran on, smelling the fear of her prey. Her throat was full of growls as she ran, closing the distance easily, not even trying, and she could hear his pained gasps as he ran. She darted forward, slapping him with one huge hand full of claws, and he staggered, fell, twisting in the dirt to get himself face up. Mary pounced on him, and he let out a sharp little yelp.
He struggled, scrambling back on his elbows, eyes wide and frightened, but he was grinning, too. Mary palmed his chest, her talons curving over his shoulders and around his ribs, and pinned him in the dirt. Her throat worked, forcing words up out of the growls. “BB. You little bastard.”
His gaze went from her, to something behind her, back to her. “Too late.”
She wouldn't have looked, but it was the knowing grin that got her, the slyness of it, and she turned, squeezing tightly to hold him, feeling claw tips puncture skin as he groaned. In the distance, she saw the woman, kneeling over the creature, and the cop behind them.
“You're all too late. It's mine now.”
Her yellow wolf's eye widened as she saw the creature raise his hands to the woman, and she howled, “No!”
Benson jerked, startled, as the little man snatched the woman by the face, and suddenly the woman was shrieking, a high, God-awful spiraling noise that caught in her throat as she began gagging. Foam filled her mouth, spilling over her lips as she grunted and writhed in the creature's grasp.
Benson pulled the trigger, and pulled the trigger, and pulled the trigger, and the little old man jerked and jumped under the bullets, whining back in his throat, but the woman just wouldn't stop screaming and foaming. “Jesus!” Benson yelled, hardly aware it was out loud. “What is it? Jesus!”
Mary's head snapped back around, pinning BB in place with the heat of her glare. “You fucking idiot!” He was laughing up at her, and she snarled down at him, jerking her free hand back and slapping him, knocking him cold and opening his face in livid gashes. She rose from her haunches, BB dangling from her claws like a rag doll, and started back across the field.
The woman fell backwards, clawing at her throat and chest, convulsing. The old man lay there, dead as a door nail, finally, something he could kill with bullets, chest blown wide open by an entire clip of .9mm ammo, and the gun fell from Benson's nerveless fingers. He staggered back a couple of steps as his brain did a short-circuit. It had already been running on overload, and now Benson was staring, eyes huge as dinner platters, at the wolfish monster coming across the field, dangling a body from one massive hand as though it were nothing, and that was it. That was all Benson could handle for one night. Something in his brain clicked uncomfortably, and he turned tail and ran for the squad car like all hell was after him.
Mary dumped BB in an unconscious heap next to his convulsing Sin. She walked on, limbs straightening, form shrinking, hair drifting off in clouds, until she was just Mary, the woman. She was older now, her long, long hair gone salt and pepper, but her body still strong, carved in lean, flat muscle as she approached the little man's body. Her eye was still wolf-yellow but human now, and long, old scars marred the left side of her face, twisting the flesh to hide the empty socket there, and her body was scarred too, because no one took over a whole pack without a few fights, but for all that, she was still Mary.
She knelt next to the corpse, which was already whithering, not rotting, but dusting away into a fine white powder. Mary touched the face, glassy silver eyes staring sightlessly up into the moonlit sky, and the whole head collapsed in a puff. She jerked her hand back. “Oh, Moon.” She sighed heavily, resting her hands on her thighs, expression sad and tired. “Escaped once too often, didn't you.” She shook her head as the last of the body crumbled. “Poor little guy. You never had a chance out here.” She turned, and the rock, too, was gently crumbling away. She spun further on her knee, and saw BB's Sin, Lust, she thought it was, had fallen still next to her master. Her face and chest still dripped foam, and even in her woman shape, Mary could smell the rabid lunacy infesting the Sin.
No good would come of that. They had to be taken back to the Carnival.
She heard paws on the ground, and spun around to see the wolf pack emerging from the woods, the aunts and sisters staying back with the pups while her alpha padded forward with his brothers. His ears were down, tail tucked, and he wouldn't look at her. Mary frowned, brows knitting together. “How did you guys get here so fast?”
* * *
The Carnival seemed louder now, more hectic than before. Alice followed along through the crowd in the wake left by Violent Clay's passing, inhaling deeply. There was a kind of smell in the air, a miasma she hadn't noticed before. It smelled vaguely bitter, and something pungent, musky, that made Alice think of sweat and nude bodies.
Beer. And sex. That was the smell.
Alice frowned, scanning the crowd. The customers were grinning, and people were hanging a little too tightly together, and the music was louder, and the lights were brighter. Here and there, Alice spotted arguments starting, and in the shadows, couples were hanging on to each other, some kissing, some just close, and the whole place reeked of beer and sex, and it clouded her mind, filling it up muzzy and hot.
Alice called her Shadow, and She stepped up, filling Alice with ice. Her mind cleared, and Alice kept the Shadow inside close. The Skindancer was out there somewhere, walking and feeding and generating its spells, and the Carnival was responding. She hurried to catch up to the clown. “We don't have a lot of time.”
“No shit.” Said the clown, frowning heavily.
“Where are we going?”
“To find Ambrosia. She'll know where the fucking thing is.”
* * *
Mary had a double fistful of the alpha's ruff, twisting him up off the ground. “What do you fucking mean, one of the pups is gone? You fucking lost one?” Her alpha snarled and jerked away, snapping at her, and she twitched back, returning the snarl. She darted at him and he snapped, missing her fingers by a hair, making a sound that was half bark, half snarl. Mary stopped, glaring for a second, then looked away and down, standing still.
The alpha huffed at her and sat, proud and tall.
BB groaned and stirred, and they all looked as he started to sit up, holding the side of his head, where blood still ran freely from the gashes Mary had given him. He got one elbow underneath him as they watched, got an eye open, looked Mary up and down, took in the pack arrayed against him.
"Hi, Mary. You look good. These the kids? Aw, cute. And who's this?” He eyed the big male wolf. “Oh, you're her puppy-daddy. Quaint."
Mary swallowed the growls building in her chest. “Someone grab the trash.” She jerked her head towards BB and his Sin. “I know where he went, and we need to take this back to the Carnival, anyway.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Bright is the moon high in starlight
Chill in the air cold as steel tonight
We shift
Call of the wild
Fear in your eyes
It's later than you realized
-- Of Wolf and Man, Metallica
“Houston, we have a problem.” Alice stood there, smoking a cigarette. The clown was standing a little near for comfort, glaring down at her. The Shadow had pried Herself up from the ground and was hovering over the corpse, up to Her black shoulder in the corpse's mouth, rooting around in the innards.
Alice glanced over at the clown. “We need to destroy this body. And with a quickness.”
Clay grunted. “We got people for that. Come on.”
Alice plugged her cigarette between her lips and snapped her fingers. The Shadow pulled free of the corpse and flopped back into place on the ground. Alice drew the cigarette from her lips and breathed out a long plume of smoke. “Lead on.”
Two paramedics knelt in the ditch working on the dying driver of the flatbed tow truck. They were surrounded in equipment, working in the light of strobing red and blue flashers, and the spotlights from the ambulance and cops cars.
The cops, for their part, stood up on the road, poking around the truck, speaking quietly into their radios. One, a well-built older man in his middle-forties with the kind of iron-gray hair a man had to earn, was kneeling on the road behind the tow truck, studying the tire tracks.
“Whatcha got, Josh?”
Lt. Josh Benson looked up from the skid marks. “Looks like the guy braked to avoid something.”
The younger cop wandered over, scanning around, over the woods, then back to the field. “Deer, probably.”
“Probably.” Benson stood up, studying the tow truck. He turned, looking into the field, spotted the steaming rock. “This is the truck from that damn carnival.”
“Yeah?” The younger cop followed Benson's pointing finger to the rock in the field. “That the asteroid thingie?”
Benson nodded. “Yeah.”
“Huh. Didn't make it very far, did he?”
“No, he didn't. Is he going to make it?”
The younger cop shook his head. “They're working on him, but . . .”
Benson sighed, rubbing the back of his head. This night was getting longer and longer. “Call another truck. We're going to have to get this one out of the ditch.”
“Yeah, it's on the way. What about the rock?”
Benson glared at it. “I guess we're going to have to get that damn thing out of here, too.”
The activity down in the ditch stilled. Benson and the younger cop turned to look, and the paramedics looked up at them, still kneeling next to the corpse. The two paramedics, a man and a woman, shook their heads. The woman rubbed her face, tossing the breathing bag she'd been using down disgustedly.
“No good?” Benson asked, voice quiet.
The man heaved a sigh. “He's been flat lined for over five minutes. We can't get him back. Something in his guts ruptured, I think. Looks like he hit the steering wheel on his way out the window.”
“We got company.” The younger cop pointed down the road. “I should get the road flares out.”
“Yeah, better.” Said Benson, squinting into the approaching glare of headlights.
The car was slowing, getting over. Benson turned away, ignoring it, tired into his bones. He found himself staring down into the ditch, into the gape-jawed face of a dead man. He shuddered, turning back. The car had stopped, and the driver-side door was opening. A man stepped out. The car's headlights glared into Benson's eyes, turning the new arrival into nothing more than a black form, faceless.
“Something we can do to help?” The man called.
Benson cocked his head, squinting into the light. The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it. “No, thanks. We got it in hand.”
“You sure about that?”
Benson started to answer, and then placed the voice. At the same time, the passenger-side door swung open, and a slow cold chill rolled down his spine.
The sign over the tent read “B.B. Wolfe Presents The Freak Show And Burlesque”. The script was curly and gothic, gold letters on a harlot red sign, spanning out over three different entrances that seemed to lead back into the same voluminous tent. All three entries were closed, two tent flaps tied shut and in the middle, an imposing steel door. There was a sign out front of what Alice took for the main entrance, the door on the right. The little sign read “closed”.
Alice looked the tent over. It had an ominous air even in the top layer of this odd little Carnival, but deeper in Alice could sense the shades of increasingly darker places, the Freak Show growing more and more twisted the farther into the Carnival one went. She glanced around, beginning to wonder if this Dr. Celestine guy had any idea of what, exactly, he had working for his Carnival, here.
The clown was approaching the left hand door. Alice followed behind, eying the tent flap with distinct unease. She stood a little back while the clown thumped his massive fist on one of the framing poles. The tent flap peeked open a bit, revealing a narrow, ratty little face. Alice only caught a glimpse of the young man before the clown rumbled “Send me Gluttony.”
The little face disappeared with a squeak, and the flap fell closed again. They waited a moment, and Alice heard ponderous footsteps approaching the front of the tent. The flap was lifted open, all the way, and Alice got a good look at the monstrosity at the door.
It – she – was bigger than Violent Clay, or at least wider, a huge, quivering slab of leprous white flesh with a cottage cheese texture. She was wearing a spangled red bikini, the top of one if nothing else, because if she was wearing the bottom, Alice couldn't see it. It was lost in the slopping fat rolls. The woman was beyond huge, bigger even than the man at the ticket booth, upwards into the range where they start measuring things in tons. Her head was nothing but jowls and chins sloping down into her chest, which was itself immense, rolling down to her belly, which hung in pendulous folds to her knees, which were lost in hanging, quivering flaps of fat, to her calves, which hung over her swollen ankles, to two surprisingly dainty little feet in spangled red pumps. Her hair was short, a dark, greasy tangle, and her eyes were two piggy little slits nearly lost in the bulges of her cheeks. Her skin was slick with grease and sweat, and the body odor reek of her rolled off in palpable waves. Her breath came in the heavy, pained blowing of a wounded buffalo.
Alice gagged, choked down her gorge.
“There's a body back behind the supply tent. Deal with it.”
The woman licked her lips, piggy little eyes widening slightly. “Fresh one?”
The clown's nose wrinkled, lips pulling back from his teeth in a grimace. “Yeah.”
“Oooo. I'll get the ketchup.”
Alice's stomach did a lazy, queasy roll.
Gluttony glanced her way. “Well, hello there.” Her voice was deep, thick, glutinous. She took a heavy step forward, then another, heaving for breath with each slow step. Alice felt like her feet were stuck to the ground as the woman heaved herself forward, breathing in deep, ragged gusts as she propelled her bulk along. Alice towered over the behemoth, but felt positively tiny and fragile when the thing stood in front of her, as solid and massive as a planet. Gluttony seemed to have her own gravity. “What have we got here?”
Alice stared down at her, the woman's stink coating her throat and tongue. She blinked, and for a second, her vision came clear, and she was looking down not at a Fat Lady, but into a gaping, carnivorous chasm, into endless, aching hunger. Alice's Shadow stirred, the Shadow inside, and Her hunger sharpened in response to Gluttony's presence, as though echoing the Fat Lady's own nature.
Alice ground her teeth and slapped the Shadow back into place. She knew the Shadow's hunger too well, had mastered it too long ago, to be much troubled by it.
Gluttony poked Alice in the chest with one fat, sausage-like finger. “I'm not your Sin, am I? But we've got some others in there. Yes we do.” Her breath was a fetid cloud. “I bet we've got one in there for you.”
Alice was mesmerized by the movement of the woman's livery lips, the jiggle of her cheeks as she spoke.
Gluttony sniffed around Alice's shoulders. “I smell gold. What you hiding in there, little girl? You coming in to visit us after all?”
With a dawning horror, a fine, bright edge of emotion, even more terrible for being something Alice hadn't felt in years, she recognized the woman. Yes. She knew this thing, an echo, an extension of the soul eater at the gates. This heaving blob of a woman housed BB's hunger, and Alice recognized her because she suddenly realized that at some time in the distant, foggy past she no longer remembered, she'd been a similar thing herself, a trapped extension of someone else's monster. She suffered a second of memory, and in it she saw a small, thin, familiar girl, all red-headed curls and flashing green eyes and chubby cheeks. Alice saw the girl weeping and smiling a sweet little smile as scabrous dark tentacles burst up from the ground, little mouths on the ends snatching and tearing at a screaming man before her, crushing and ripping and pulling the man down into the ground.
“You can fuck directly off.” Alice's voice was a shimmery ghost.
Gluttony laughed, and her whole body jiggled as she did, a mass of quivering white Jell-O. She turned on her heel, a slow revolution, and moved off. “Behind the supply tent?”
Violent Clay nodded.
“Mmmmmm.” The woman lumbered away, licking her lips and rubbing her hands together.
“Jesus fucking Christ in a side car.” Alice whispered. “What is this place?”
The clown giggled.
Benson stood rooted to the ground. He couldn't have said why, but his spine was shot through with ice, and his bowels felt hot and loose, like they were about to let go. His heart beat doubled, and his blood felt full of cold needles. His hand itched to wrap around the butt of his gun.
“Get back in your car, please, sir.” It took him two tries to get the words out. He'd gone cotton-mouthed.
Something cracked loudly and Benson twitched hard. He found his gun in his hand.
“Josh?” The cop next to him grabbed his arm. “What's wrong?”
Benson shook his head, heart slamming in his chest. Both dark forms at the car had turned, looking out in the field. Benson turned, looking out that way as well. There was another loud cracking noise. With the glare in his eyes, Benson couldn't see what was going on in the field, but his gut told him, coiling into tight, hard knots, that something bad was going on.
“Josh? You all right?” The younger cop shook his arm lightly, eyes wide with alarm. “Guys?” He called it over his shoulder to the paramedics. “Guys, c'mere! Josh – Mike, I think Josh is having a heart attack!”
Benson shook his head. The cracking noise came again, with a long, rough, ripping undertone. His lips worked, finally managing, “What is that? What's that noise?”
The the passenger of the car moved around the front, going to the driver's side. For a moment, as she walked in front of the headlights, the passenger was a stark, distinct black form, long, lovely legs, swinging hips and hair. For a moment, Joshua Benson forgot his fear, and then she passed out of the light, and his terror returned tenfold in a freezing rush.
The two forms jumped the shallow ditch, and were out into the field. Benson squinted through the glare. They were headed for the rock. Benson jerked free of the younger cop and the paramedic, moving forward, past the lights. He heard them call his name as he hopped across the ditch, himself, and now, in the darkness, he could see the rock, split in half, smoke rolling thick and heavy out from the crack. “Hey! Hey, you two get back from there!”
He couldn't have said why, but he leveled his gun. He could see the forms well enough now to recognize them for sure, the Freak Show carnie who'd been in the parking lot earlier, the guy with the shady eyes and too-pleasant smile, and the other was a woman, gorgeous, long dark hair, lithe form clothed in a little red dress. Benson glanced from them to the rock as his partner jumped the ditch.
A hand came up out of the crack, fastening on the edge of the rock. The hand was spindly, very white, fingers too long, as though they had too many joints.
“What the hell are they doing --” The younger cop's voice trailed off, eyes growing huge as he spotted the rock. “What --”
“Call for help, Steve. Hurry.”
“Josh --”
“Steve. Help. Now.” Despite his terror, Benson's voice came out hard and calm, the words sharp, firm snaps. He took two steps forward. “Hey! You – Bart! BB!” He leveled the gun, racking the slide back with an unmistakable ratcheting click. “Get away from there! Now!”
BB turned from the rock, where a second hand was flailing out, grabbing the ridge. He was grinning, an ear-to-ear leer full of cheerful good humor. “Lieutenant Benson, is that you? How good to see you again! Just coming to get my property back.”
“Hands up. Step back. Now.” Benson knew he was going to shoot. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew the situation had gone deep south, knew things were profoundly wrong. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if the gun would actually stop the carnie, and couldn't for the life of him think why it wouldn't, but . . . “Both of you! Hands in the air where I can see them. Get back from that thing.”
BB put his hands up, the woman following suit. They were both smiling entirely too much. They took a couple of steps away from the rock, towards Benson, and Benson didn't care for that, either.
“Come on, Lieutenant – I'm just here for what's mine. Rightfully mine, I might add.” The carnie spread his hands out in a harmless, friendly gesture. “No need for the gun, Josh, wasn't it? We're all friends, here.”
A squalling sound issued from the rock, ragged, not quite human. Benson knew all the way to the core of his soul that he absolutely did not want to see whatever was about to crawl up out of the asteroid. He shifted his aim towards the rock, heart hammering so hard he almost couldn't feel the pause between beats. Somewhere behind him, he heard Steve pull his gun as well.
“What the hell's in there, Josh?” Steve's voice was thready, weak. Benson knew if he looked, Steve's gun would be jittering all over the place.
The carnie and his girlfriend were looking over their shoulders, at the hands gripping the edges of the cracked rock. There was a tension in the hands now, harsh little grunts coming out of the split. Something was pulling itself out of the rock.
Please God, Benson prayed. Please don't let me have to see that.
The carnie was staring at the rock, eyes wide and avid, grinning. The woman was still staring at them, smiling her lovely smile. Benson kept his aim steady on them, and in his peripheral vision, saw a set of arms clawing up out of the rock. There was a long, horrifying moan, and the arms tensed, pulling.
Benson shifted his aim to the rock. “Oh God, please don't. Please don't.”
All at the same time, the woman put her hand on her carnie boyfriend's arm, the thing levered itself up out of the rock, and Benson, in a white hot panic, began firing. All at the same time, the carnie turned, mouth opening wide in a howl of rage, the thing toppled out of the rock, and the woman darted forward. All at the same time, Benson thought, Thank-you, I didn't have to see it, and the carnie launched himself at the cops, the woman hot on his heels. Benson kept firing. He kept firing long after the chamber went dry. All he could see was BB's eyes, deep black empty pits.
Gluttony rounded the corner of the supply tent, saw the feet of the body. A smile spread out on her fat face, bunching her jowls into layers of greasy wrinkles. She thundered slowly forward, heaving and panting for breath, advancing on the corpse. Drool ran in thin ropes down her chins.
She looked down, and let out a low little moan of displeasure. The corpse was swollen, already bloating with death vapors. The stomach, in particular, was profoundly distended, poking roundly up, shirt shoved back by its bulk, hem of the jeans pushed down to make room. The flavor would be spoiled, now.
Still, Gluttony supposed that was why she'd brought the ketchup along. She lumbered forward, raising the red plastic squeeze bottle, and the stomach abruptly split with a wet ripping noise. Gluttony froze in place. Her weight took her two more steps forward. Intestines spilled out of the cavity with a horrible reek.
The intestines writhed. Gluttony blinked, staring, gape-jawed.
Not intestines. Tentacles. The tentacles hooked the ground, and a wet, gray, slug-like thing dragged itself forth from the stinking cavity. It was streaked in blood and shit. Another followed. Then another. Then another.
They had no eyes, but Gluttony could sense them staring at her, somehow, and the tentacles whipped and flailed, and they made a terrible mewling noise. They were hungry. Gluttony could feel it. Their hunger was vast and mighty, surpassing even her own.
“Oh.” She whispered, and her smile came back, slow. “Oh, oh, my poor babies. You're just starving, aren't you?”
The howl echoed off the sky, a long, loud, sonorous call that rolled out over the field and choked off into a jagged growling snarl. BB jerked his head up from his feeding, listening to the cop gag and moan as he scanned the wood line.
At first all he saw was the yellow eye, and he almost mistook it for a lightning bug until he realized it was embedded in a long gray shadow. The shadow opened its mouth, revealing glistening teeth. It was pacing to the edge of the ditch. It bunched, preparing to leap.
“Oh. Shit.” BB dropped the lieutenant, scrambling back. Somewhere off to his right, the paramedics continued to rip each other's clothes off as Lust feasted on them, and just behind him, the younger cop, who had leaped in front of his partner, lay in a heap, empty eyes smoking. He stumbled over the corpse as the wolf lunged across the ditch, landing with a dull, heavy thud on the dirt road. The growling intensified, a deep, savage, ragged sound, as the wolf stood there, braced in the headlights, tail a perfect rainbow arc, hackles raised, black lips peeled back from sharp teeth.
“Shit. Can't be.” BB kicked back in the field, throwing dirt as he shoved himself up. “Can't be!”
The wolf paced forward, vibrating with the growl, claws throwing hard-packed gravel, and BB heard the grinding crack of bones as the wolf began to twist and stand. In one, two steps it – she – was on her back feet, body warping as she moved, lengthening, gaining and shifting mass, eye growing more human, muzzle shortening, paws lengthening out into taloned hands, back legs still backwards-kneed, but longer, stronger. The half-wolf, half-woman stood on her back legs, threw her head back, and howled.
BB took two steps back, turning. “Fuck.”
His gaze went around the field in a rush, taking it all in. Mary was strong, and she was fast, and she had no business being here, but that was beside the point. She was, and he didn't have a drop of silver on him, but he did have one thing. Mary in her rage was powerful, but she wasn't the brightest thing ever to snarl on two feet.
He had two options. He could get mauled and manage to survive somehow – the “somehow” being the tricky part in this scenario because Mary had always taken him a bit personally – painful in the short term, but immensely rewarding in the long term if he could survive a bite. Or, he could distract her for a few minutes, and -- “Lust!”
He made eye contact with the Sin, and then pointedly turned his stare to the writhing, squalling, white form by the broken asteroid. Lust nodded, and BB turned and ran like hell. He could hear the paws in the dirt, the snarling, as Mary leaped after him.
He needed his breath for running, but BB couldn't quite manage to stop himself from snickering.
The wolf-woman landed next to Benson, and he saw it, and he fully realized that he had just seen a thing that was somehow part woman, part wolf, like fantastic CGI in some horror movie, but it just couldn't quite sink all the way in.
I didn't see that, he told himself, and himself said back, Yes, you did. “Couldn'ta.” He managed the word, a weak shake of his head. His chest was on fire, as though hooks had been shoved down his throat and used to pull his lungs back out. His eyes burned, and his vision was blurry, teary. He had a vague impression of Steve jumping in front of him, shoving him back. He seemed to recall the carnie grabbing Steve, and just looking him in the eyes as Steve choked and gagged and moaned. The carnie had tossed him down in a tumbled heap, and Steve hadn't moved. And then the carnie had grabbed him and . . .
And what? What exactly? Benson couldn't make it come clear in his mind. He lifted his head, slowly. It ached. He glanced around, blinking to clear his vision.
His gun. There was his gun. He reached for it, felt immediately better for having it in his hand. He armed the water out of his eyes and pushed himself over, shoving himself to his knees. The paramedics, Mike and Danielle, were slumped together, unmoving, half-naked. Benson ejected the clip from his gun, managed to fumble another out of his belt, reloaded. Not that the first nine bullets had done him any good, but he felt steadier, more calm, with a loaded gun in his hands. He felt certain he had emptied at least five bullets into the carnie's chest, and he had just kept on, but that couldn't possibly be the case. This was a .9mm. One did not just take five bullets from a .9mm and keep on coming, Kevlar vest, no Kevlar vest, weirdo carnie or not. Life just did not work that way.
Of course, life also did not include howling wolf-women, either, but Benson put that thought out of his mind. He'd just told himself he hadn't seen that, hadn't he?
He turned on his knees, looking around, and spotted the woman, the carnie's pretty girlfriend. She was kneeling next to the rock, reaching for --
-- I don't want to see it! --
-- the thing behind the rock, and Benson got a foot underneath him and stood unsteadily, racking the slide on the gun. He checked the safety, found it off, and started towards the woman. He told himself again and again that he didn't want to see the thing in the rock, and himself answered back in the same calm tone, You might have to. Man up, Josh.
He moved forward, quickly, before he could lose his nerve, and rounded the asteroid, face turned away, and then, with a little sound of dismay, looked dead on at the woman and the atrocity she was kneeling over.
It was a little old man, nude, sexless if not entirely genderless, skin whithered white and sagging in wrinkles, joints all wrong, twisted, as though with arthritis, toothless as his mouth gaped, but his eyes were wide, young, innocent, and pure silver. The woman knelt over him, brushing his face. “There there, it's me, now.” She said gently.
Benson raised his gun. She didn't seem at all aware of him.
“Lady?” The old man's voice was quavery, weak, paper thin, accented with something almost Cockney in tone.
“Yes, it's me.”
“Lady?”
Benson leveled the gun at the old man, hesitant now that he'd seen it, because it just wasn't all that awful, now, was it? Weird, sure, but just some diseased old man, a little on the senile side from the look of him, and he must have imagined that whole weird thing with the rock splitting open . . .
“Lady? Izzit you, Lady?”
The old man blinked, peering up at the woman, reaching a shaking hand up to her face. His smile faded, slowly, and his demented silver eyes narrowed. “That's not the Lady.” His voice was a hot little hiss.
She was hunting, Mary was hunting, and it was good, it was so good, and the prey ran, and she chased him, moving in a long graceful lope. She'd almost forgotten this form, its eerie grace and power, and she ran on, smelling the fear of her prey. Her throat was full of growls as she ran, closing the distance easily, not even trying, and she could hear his pained gasps as he ran. She darted forward, slapping him with one huge hand full of claws, and he staggered, fell, twisting in the dirt to get himself face up. Mary pounced on him, and he let out a sharp little yelp.
He struggled, scrambling back on his elbows, eyes wide and frightened, but he was grinning, too. Mary palmed his chest, her talons curving over his shoulders and around his ribs, and pinned him in the dirt. Her throat worked, forcing words up out of the growls. “BB. You little bastard.”
His gaze went from her, to something behind her, back to her. “Too late.”
She wouldn't have looked, but it was the knowing grin that got her, the slyness of it, and she turned, squeezing tightly to hold him, feeling claw tips puncture skin as he groaned. In the distance, she saw the woman, kneeling over the creature, and the cop behind them.
“You're all too late. It's mine now.”
Her yellow wolf's eye widened as she saw the creature raise his hands to the woman, and she howled, “No!”
Benson jerked, startled, as the little man snatched the woman by the face, and suddenly the woman was shrieking, a high, God-awful spiraling noise that caught in her throat as she began gagging. Foam filled her mouth, spilling over her lips as she grunted and writhed in the creature's grasp.
Benson pulled the trigger, and pulled the trigger, and pulled the trigger, and the little old man jerked and jumped under the bullets, whining back in his throat, but the woman just wouldn't stop screaming and foaming. “Jesus!” Benson yelled, hardly aware it was out loud. “What is it? Jesus!”
Mary's head snapped back around, pinning BB in place with the heat of her glare. “You fucking idiot!” He was laughing up at her, and she snarled down at him, jerking her free hand back and slapping him, knocking him cold and opening his face in livid gashes. She rose from her haunches, BB dangling from her claws like a rag doll, and started back across the field.
The woman fell backwards, clawing at her throat and chest, convulsing. The old man lay there, dead as a door nail, finally, something he could kill with bullets, chest blown wide open by an entire clip of .9mm ammo, and the gun fell from Benson's nerveless fingers. He staggered back a couple of steps as his brain did a short-circuit. It had already been running on overload, and now Benson was staring, eyes huge as dinner platters, at the wolfish monster coming across the field, dangling a body from one massive hand as though it were nothing, and that was it. That was all Benson could handle for one night. Something in his brain clicked uncomfortably, and he turned tail and ran for the squad car like all hell was after him.
Mary dumped BB in an unconscious heap next to his convulsing Sin. She walked on, limbs straightening, form shrinking, hair drifting off in clouds, until she was just Mary, the woman. She was older now, her long, long hair gone salt and pepper, but her body still strong, carved in lean, flat muscle as she approached the little man's body. Her eye was still wolf-yellow but human now, and long, old scars marred the left side of her face, twisting the flesh to hide the empty socket there, and her body was scarred too, because no one took over a whole pack without a few fights, but for all that, she was still Mary.
She knelt next to the corpse, which was already whithering, not rotting, but dusting away into a fine white powder. Mary touched the face, glassy silver eyes staring sightlessly up into the moonlit sky, and the whole head collapsed in a puff. She jerked her hand back. “Oh, Moon.” She sighed heavily, resting her hands on her thighs, expression sad and tired. “Escaped once too often, didn't you.” She shook her head as the last of the body crumbled. “Poor little guy. You never had a chance out here.” She turned, and the rock, too, was gently crumbling away. She spun further on her knee, and saw BB's Sin, Lust, she thought it was, had fallen still next to her master. Her face and chest still dripped foam, and even in her woman shape, Mary could smell the rabid lunacy infesting the Sin.
No good would come of that. They had to be taken back to the Carnival.
She heard paws on the ground, and spun around to see the wolf pack emerging from the woods, the aunts and sisters staying back with the pups while her alpha padded forward with his brothers. His ears were down, tail tucked, and he wouldn't look at her. Mary frowned, brows knitting together. “How did you guys get here so fast?”
The Carnival seemed louder now, more hectic than before. Alice followed along through the crowd in the wake left by Violent Clay's passing, inhaling deeply. There was a kind of smell in the air, a miasma she hadn't noticed before. It smelled vaguely bitter, and something pungent, musky, that made Alice think of sweat and nude bodies.
Beer. And sex. That was the smell.
Alice frowned, scanning the crowd. The customers were grinning, and people were hanging a little too tightly together, and the music was louder, and the lights were brighter. Here and there, Alice spotted arguments starting, and in the shadows, couples were hanging on to each other, some kissing, some just close, and the whole place reeked of beer and sex, and it clouded her mind, filling it up muzzy and hot.
Alice called her Shadow, and She stepped up, filling Alice with ice. Her mind cleared, and Alice kept the Shadow inside close. The Skindancer was out there somewhere, walking and feeding and generating its spells, and the Carnival was responding. She hurried to catch up to the clown. “We don't have a lot of time.”
“No shit.” Said the clown, frowning heavily.
“Where are we going?”
“To find Ambrosia. She'll know where the fucking thing is.”
Mary had a double fistful of the alpha's ruff, twisting him up off the ground. “What do you fucking mean, one of the pups is gone? You fucking lost one?” Her alpha snarled and jerked away, snapping at her, and she twitched back, returning the snarl. She darted at him and he snapped, missing her fingers by a hair, making a sound that was half bark, half snarl. Mary stopped, glaring for a second, then looked away and down, standing still.
The alpha huffed at her and sat, proud and tall.
BB groaned and stirred, and they all looked as he started to sit up, holding the side of his head, where blood still ran freely from the gashes Mary had given him. He got one elbow underneath him as they watched, got an eye open, looked Mary up and down, took in the pack arrayed against him.
"Hi, Mary. You look good. These the kids? Aw, cute. And who's this?” He eyed the big male wolf. “Oh, you're her puppy-daddy. Quaint."
Mary swallowed the growls building in her chest. “Someone grab the trash.” She jerked her head towards BB and his Sin. “I know where he went, and we need to take this back to the Carnival, anyway.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
