Circus of Blood Read online

  Books by James R. Tuck

  BLOOD AND BULLETS

  BLOOD AND SILVER

  BLOOD AND MAGICK

  Novellas

  THAT THING AT THE ZOO

  SPIDER’S LULLABY

  CIRCUS OF BLOOD

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  CIRCUS OF BLOOD

  JAMES R. TUCK

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  1

  If my heart wasn’t armor-plated with scar tissue, it would have broken for the girl who was hooked up to IVs and fighting for her life.

  Someone had tried to beat her to death.

  She lay on a bed, a tiny, frail thing. Ugly bruises spread under her skin like oil slicks, almost black under her olive tone. One side of her face was swollen, puffy, like it had been injected with water. The other side was covered in gauze that already needed changing. More bandages wrapped her body, holding together fractures, stabilizing them in the hope that her body could knit itself back together.

  If she hadn’t been a Were-bat, then this would’ve been an autopsy. My throat was tight with anger when I spoke.

  “What’s her name?”

  “What? Oh, hold on.” Larson flipped back in a chart that was on his lap. “Here it is. Identification has her name as Fallene McCollum, age nineteen.”

  “Track down any kin of hers?”

  “Kat’s on it.”

  Kat was Larson’s girlfriend. She was my sister first though. Not my blood sister, my sister of choice. She helps me run the business that funds my war on monsters, and is a miracle worker when it comes to finding information on the Internet. If this girl had family in the foothills of Bangladesh, assuming that Bangladesh actually has foothills, then Kat would track them down.

  “When was she found?”

  “About two hours ago.”

  Right after sundown. “How bad is she?”

  Larson let out a quick puff of air, blowing away a strand of hair that had fallen over one eye. The hair was bright, carrot-cake red that looked darker now that it was longer. It blended into his beard, making him look a little like a crazed hippie Jesus.

  Slender fingers skimmed the chart again, flipping pages as he gathered information to tell me. One page ruffled loose, sliding off his lap. It flipped back and forth, riding air currents to the floor where it slipped under the rubber edge of the wheel on his chair.

  He leaned over to snatch it up, the wheel on the other side tilting up about two inches. I jerked forward, hand out to stabilize him before I even thought of it. Daggers shot out of his eyes at me.

  “I’ve got it. This damned chair won’t beat me.”

  I stepped back and let him strain for it. It would have been easier and quicker if I had just reached down and gotten the damn paper, but that wasn’t the point.

  Larson had been wheelchair bound since helping me defeat a crazy hell-bitch named Appollonia. Back then he’d been a wannabe vampire hunter. Winding up in the wheelchair had pretty much put an end to that.

  Since then, he had proven to be capable and quick-minded. Now he functioned as the doctor to the lycanthrope community we had.

  I don’t know if that technically made him a veterinarian or not.

  He saw patients at a clinic Kat had used my money to build for him. It had medical facilities and a laboratory, and had been retrofitted to be wheelchair accessible.

  That’s why he was the one Fallene had been brought to.

  Fallene. It was a sweet name. She looked like a sweet girl. I held on to her name as I looked down at her, repeating it over and over in my head like a mantra. I knew nothing about her except she was young and someone had decided to try to beat her to death. I would hold on to her name as a talisman of vengeance as I hunted out whatever was responsible for this.

  One thing I knew right now was that it wasn’t anything human. Fallene was a lycanthrope. Even a frail young girl of a lycanthrope was stronger and faster than me. No matter if she was or wasn’t a fighter, no normal human would be able to do the amount of damage I was looking at to her.

  Unless she got run over by a truck.

  So we were looking at something supernatural.

  Larson rocked back upright, paper trapped between thumb and forefinger. “Aha!” He shuffled the escapee back into the chart and scanned some more lines.

  “Anytime you’re ready.”

  “Oh, sorry. Distracted.” He looked up at me. “She has multiple contusions and lacerations. Severe blood loss. Severe head trauma, initial X-rays indicate some swelling of the brain. She’s burning with fever. There is internal bleeding in her abdomen, but it seems to be closing on its own. Multiple deep puncture wounds. Six cracked ribs and micro-fractures on—”

  “Hold up.”

  He blinked, cornflower blue eyes fever-bright in dark hollows. “Yes?”

  “Tell me about these puncture wounds.”

  “Well, most of them aren’t clean. They don’t go in and then out like an ice pick. They’re torn and ripped on the entrance, making them look like lacerations. They only showed up in the body scan because they were between three and four inches deep so they read as black lines inside the body image.”

  The skin on the back of my neck was tightening.

  “Where are they?”

  “Arms, upper chest, neck, and her thighs.”

  “How many puncture wounds did you find?”

  He checked the chart. “Forty-two, but they consistently look like a repeating pattern of six pairs.”

  The nerve under my eye began to twitch.

  Fucking vampires.

  2

  We were greeted by a wall of chaotic noise as the door opened. I followed Larson down the hall toward the sounds of people talking and children playing. His chair squeaked just slightly on the tile floor as he pushed on the wheels. I wanted to grab the handles and shove him to speed up, but I restrained myself.

  The hallway dumped us out into a square room full of people, almost exclusively women and children. It was the lobby for Larson’s clinic. People were waiting their turn to see him. I guess Fallene had cut in line since she was in such bad shape.

  The room hit me like a slap.

  I had my power pushed way down, knowing I was going to be around a lot of lycanthropes, but there were so many it still tried to flare up.

  A long time ago, in the hunt for the monster that killed my family, I rescued an Angel. Don’t look at me like that, she was an actual Angel of the Lord. Shortly after that I wound up dead. She appeared and returned the rescue, infusing me with her blood, essence, whatever. I resurrected a little more than human. I was faster, stronger, and harder to kill. And the Angel blood in my veins lets me sense things that were supernatural.

  Being in this room set that blood on fire.

  I was washed with sensory input. The slither of scales, the weight of thick-napped fur, the prickle of feathers in my wings pulling as the air pushed up on them . . .

  It can get weird.

  Sometimes it is helpful, most of the time it’s downright damn annoying. That’s why I had my power pulled tight and pushed down. Not that it did any da
mn good.

  As we entered the room, every mother’s eyes lifted, widening in hope that it was their turn. One by one they dimmed in realization that it wasn’t. They weren’t angry, more resigned. They all remembered before Larson came along when they didn’t have a doctor to look over their sick children. The days when they had to make do with home remedies and prayer.

  Lycanthrope immunity is off the charts. They can heal almost anything except injury by silver, and they don’t catch colds. But as children, their immunity is still developing, so when a lycanthrope child gets sick, the mother becomes frantic. Larson did a good business and gave a good service, so nobody bitched. Besides, they can’t go to a human doctor or hospital for fear that they would be discovered.

  Some humans know about the supernatural world, but most are ignorant. They live oblivious, and everything supernatural wants it to stay that way. If humans as a whole knew that lycanthropes existed, their fear would drive them to hunt and kill them all, or turn them into exhibits in zoos.

  Everything stays on the down low. That’s my job, hunting the supernatural down when they become a threat to mankind. I’ve been doing it since my family was taken.

  Larson stopped with a sudden jerk of his arms. I had to quickstep to the side to keep from plowing into him.

  “That’s him.” His finger pointed to one of the few men in the room. He was by the door, standing beside a fake plant. He shuffled from side to side on flat feet. He wasn’t very tall. He looked longer because he was so lean. Small hands fidgeted, moving from the pockets of his jeans to the buttons on his bowling shirt to the brim of the porkpie hat that sat slanted on a narrow head.

  He saw Larson pointing at him and his hands began moving faster.

  My hand fell on Larson’s shoulder. It was hard with muscle made from pushing his chair. “I’ve got it from here. You go back to work. Let me know when she wakes up so I can ask her some questions.”

  “I don’t know if she will . . .”

  My voice got hard. “When.”

  “Will do, boss.” He said boss like another man would say asshole. A j erk of his hands spun his chair away and back down the hallway.

  Larson and I have a complicated relationship.

  As I crossed the room, I tried to ignore the reactions of the people there. Whispers behind hands, eyes turning away, some mothers pulling their children closer. The room was electric with fear. Not the stampede panic of terror, just a low-level buzz of anxiety.

  It might have been the Colt .45s that hung in my shoulder rig; it could have been the tattoos that painted my arms from knuckles to way under my shirt sleeves; it could have been my sheer size and appearance. The shaved head and goatee make me look like a big scary thug. Hell, I am a big scary thug.

  But it wasn’t any of that.

  It was my reputation.

  Everyone in that room knew that if they ever crossed the line and turned on humans, then I would be the one who came for them in the night. I was the hand of justice for them. Judge, jury, and executioner in a court without appeals.

  I had killed some of their kind, probably some of their relatives. I understood their fear.

  That didn’t make it any easier to see.

  As I walked, one woman stood up. She moved with that faster-than-human speed that lycanthropes had. My hand jerked. I stopped it from going to my gun, but it wanted to. I didn’t recognize her. She was someone’s grandmother, her shoulders stooped under a paisley shawl. She still walked straight. The look on her face was unreadable, milky brown eyes pinned on me.

  I stopped, letting her come to me. The room was so silent the air pulled at my eardrums.

  She stepped up to me. The skin on the back of her arms hung down loosely, swaying as she reached up to my face. I bent down slightly. Those hands clamped on each side of my head, pressing with lycanthrope strength.

  Adrenaline painted my nerves as I realized how easy this old lady could snap my neck.

  She pulled me down.

  And planted a big wet kiss on my cheek.

  She let go, squinting up at me. Her voice was deep, gruff, and riding breath that smelled like butterscotch. “Thank you.” She turned and began shuffling back to her seat.

  Everyone in the room found something else to look at.

  Well, I’ll be damned.

  The guy in the porkpie hat pushed away from the wall as I stepped near. I motioned outside with a jerk of my head and pushed open the door. It shushed on oiled hinges. Heat pounced on me, driving away the air-conditioned comfort I had enjoyed inside the clinic. The South, man; I’m from here and I do love it, but where the hell else are you going to find the temperature at damn near eighty degrees hours after the sun had gone down?

  Sweat popped out on the back of my head, sliding down my neck and into my shirt collar. The straps of my shoulder holster immediately felt like they had been roasting in an oven. They pulled tight and hot, sweat pooling under them. I kept walking to the end of the ramp that led up to the door. The guy in the hat followed.

  His legs weren’t as long as mine so I reached the end first, turning to lean against the handrail. A little bowlegged, it gave him a swinging step. He was lighting a cigarette as he stepped up. Now that he was nearer, I could see he was a lot younger than I originally thought. He had one of those faces that would always look about forty. He was somewhere between a half and three fourths that. It wasn’t a good face. Narrow, pointy chin, thin mustache over thin, villainous lips, beady dark eyes; he looked shifty, shady. Central casting for a two-bit hood.

  He blew nicotine-laced smoke away, held up the cancer stick. “You mind?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Ah, thanks.” Inhale. Exhale. “I know me ma is always on me to quit, but I figure since I can’t catch the cancer, why not? Right?” There was a lilt in his voice. Irish.

  “I don’t worry much about dying from things like cancer.”

  He looked at me from under his hat. Inhale. His eyes looked at the guns that rode plain for the world to see. Exhale. “No. I don’t suppose you do.”

  “So you know who I am?”

  “Man, everyone knows who you are. You’re the bogeyman. Yer the reason all the little lycanthrope kidlets walk the straight and narrow. Yer the life taker and the widow maker.”

  “Most people just call me Deacon.”

  “To your face, man.” Inhale. Exhale. “Behind yer back . . .” He let it trail away.

  “So, what’s your name?”

  “Sullivan. Most people call me Sully.”

  Enough dicking around.

  “You’re the one who found Fallene?”

  “Aw, shite. Is that the girl’s name?”

  “It is.”

  “It’s just so sad, a pretty little thing like her. Just a slip of a girl.”

  “Tell me how you found her.”

  “I was driving to a friend’s house, not paying attention, when she fell on the road in front of my car. I near about ran her over.”

  “She stumbled from the side of the road?”

  “She fell, man. From the sky. Dropped like a stone.”

  “In human form?”

  He nodded, gulping smoke from his cigarette.

  Now I knew one more thing. There were flyers with the vampires. Clues were just adding up like I was a detective. I’m not. I’m an occult bounty hunter. I find things and I kill them.

  “Tell me what you know about vampires.”

  He stopped smoking, cigarette almost to his lips. Beady, dark brown eyes widened under his hat brim. “Vampires?” His voice cracked. “Aw, fook, man, don’t tell me vampires are real.”

  “Of course they’re real. You’re a lycanthrope. You didn’t think there might be more shit like y’all in the world?”

  “Never put any mind to it.” Inhale. Exhale. “You think the Drac pack did that to the girl?”

  “Her name is Fallene. Yes, vampires did that.”

  “What are you gonna do about it?”

  “What do
you think I’m going to do about it?”

  He flicked away his used-up cancerstick. The glowing butt arced away, disappearing in the dark. He straightened, pushing his hat back. “Well, good luck to you, Mr. Bogeyman. If anyone deserves to be killed, it’s whoever hurt that girl.” His hand thrust out toward me.

  I looked at it.

  “I hate to break it to you, pal, but you’re not done. You’re going to take me out to where you found her.”

  He pulled his hand back in.

  “Aw, fook. I was afraid you were going to say something like that.”

  3

  “So what kind of car is this?”

  “Sixty-six Mercury Comet.”

  “She’s a beaut.”

  I nodded, foot pressing harder on the accelerator. The motor responded with a growl. We were on the edge of town where the suburbs start to give way to country and property got bigger. Houses became fewer, set back farther from the road. More trees, less side roads, less traffic. We had been driving about forty minutes to get here.

  I reached over and turned down the music. My finger hesitated, tempted to let the song finish before I did. Janiva Magness was tearing her heart out on a rendition of “You Were Never Mine.” Delbert McClinton never did his song the justice that Janiva did. I don’t know Janiva’s history, but somewhere in her past that song happened to her. Someone had broken that lady’s heart and broken it badly. It was a song full of loss and regret and sorrow.

  I could relate.

  I pushed the button, emptying the car of music and leaving us with just the rumble of the engine.

  “Aw, man. I quite liked that. It’s better than what I thought you’d be playing when we got in.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You know, metal, screamo, some such shite as that.”

  “Sometimes. I have to be in a mood.”

  “I’d hate to see that mood, man.”

  “Yes, you would.”