The Immortal Circus (Cirque des Immortels)

She exaggerates a pout, but lets go and turns away. I take another drink of the wine and try to sink back into the shadows. But everything in the tent is shadow and candlelight and bass. There’s no getting away from it. After a few more minutes of feeling like a horrible voyeur, I decide this really isn’t my scene, that Kingston was right. This wasn’t for people like me, though I have no idea how being mortal plays into it. I set the glass down and turn away, head to the exit. Only there is no exit. I spin around and try to find the black curtain, but it’s not there. Just purple and black walls.

“Going somewhere?” a man beside me asks, snagging my sleeve with a finger. He’s wearing a black mask, but I’ve never seen him before. He’s tall, very tall, and lithe. His eyes are shining blue behind his mask, and there’s a blue feather boa around his bare shoulders. His muscular chest and stomach are covered in intricate tattoos.

A woman slides up next to him, also in a black mask. She’s wearing a V-necked red dress that dips dangerously below her navel. I focus on her eyes, which are warm amber. If those tits are real, I’ll eat my wineglass.

“She must be new,” the Playboy model says. She reaches out and slides one sharp finger under my chin. The man’s hand reaches up to my shoulder, though it doesn’t stay there long. For some reason, I don’t have the will to push it away when his touch slides toward my chest. They’re both so close I want to back away, but there’s nowhere to go, and I have a feeling it would be worse than bad manners if I did. I don’t move and try not to flinch as their touches grow bolder.

“Mab told me about you,” the woman continues, “her latest acquisition to this menagerie. I’m quite surprised she let you in, considering…” but she doesn’t say why, just smirks and steps back, scratching my skin in the process.

I don’t rub the spot, just keep focused on her eyes. The man’s hand has found its way to my hip. His touch is colder than ice.

“Come on, Fritz. Let’s enjoy the party.” She puts an arm over his shoulder and he wraps an arm around her waist, and then they’re sliding back into the crowd. The tingle of his fingertips still clings to my skin like frostbite.

I look around. It hadn’t hit me how many people there were in the tent; the people in black masks far outnumber the white. Mab’s been inviting people in, and it’s clear from their garb that they know the occasion well. I watch as two men in black masks and torn suits tilt a white-masked guy’s head back, pouring wine down his throat. Oh yes, they know the occasion well. The music pulses, the heat grows. Something deep down inside of me is growling. It doesn’t want to be sitting in a corner. It feels the music. It wants out. It wants to play.

On a chaise longue in front of me, a man is stripped naked, except for his porcelain mask. Black-masked men and women caress his arms and thighs and neck with fingers and tongues. The man groans as one of the men bites into his hip. The sight of it makes my heart thud faster, and my fingers grip tighter at my side. A small trail of blood drips down his pale skin but he doesn’t seem to notice. In fact, he reaches down and runs his fingers through the man’s hair as he laps up the blood, slowly, slowly licking.

“Trust me, dear, he isn’t to your taste.”

It’s Mab. She stands beside me with a grin on her lips and a drink in her hand, watching as her black- masked patrons bite and lick and bleed her guest.

“What…what is this?”

“If you’re interested,” she says, ignoring the question, “there’s a delightful young man next to the birdcage. Twenty-one, wishes to be a dentist…”

“I don’t…” The man being drained is writhing in ecstasy or agony. More and more black-masked patrons come in to bow at his side, and bring their lips to his bleeding flesh like some lustful Communion. No one comes to his aid; no one seems to notice anything is even wrong. Around him, couples and groups are locked in limbs and lips as they sway to the hypnotic music. No one in a white mask is clothed or alone, not that I can see.

“In that case, what about the young woman being entertained on the hoop over there? I don’t judge. Besides, she’s much too young for Stephanie.”

“I’m not…” I glance over to where she’s pointing, to the girl hanging naked on one of the hoops, her arms bound above her head and a woman running her hands over her chest and back. Red lines trace themselves into her skin, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain. If she is, she likes it.

“You see, Vivienne,” Mab says. She takes a sip from her glass. “We are the peddlers of dreams. Some people come to see a show, but for many, that isn’t enough. Their dreams are darker, less...publicly recognized. And as I said, I am a humanitarian. This is my way of giving them what they truly, deeply desire. This is how we get the strongest dreams of all.”

“You’re killing them,” I say. I can barely see the man on the chaise longue through the crowd of hungry patrons.

Mab shrugs.

“Not everyone wishes to live forever.” She sets her glass down on the table and takes a half step forward. Then she stops and looks back. “Although we cater to all wants here — even voyeurism — I might recommend leaving. The party’s just beginning, and I doubt you’d want to be here when the Night Terrors arrive.” She winks like it’s our little joke and slips into the crowd, disappearing in the sea of black masks and ball gowns.

A cool breeze blows at the back of my neck. I turn. There, like a deeper shadow on the wall, is the entrance. I move toward it and then close my eyes. The music behind me is a hook, an anchor. The fire in me burns, wants to lose itself in the throng. But all I can picture is the bleeding man. I try to block out how his blood would taste, how his skin would feel beneath my fingertips. I bite my lip until I taste my own blood and force myself to leave the tent. When the flap closes behind me, the cool air hits me like a snap to my senses. I drop my mask on the table and head to my trailer.

I don’t look back.

By the time I’m a few steps away, I’m running.

* * *

“How’d it go?” Melody asks.

She’s sitting on a lawn chair in front of the trailer, right outside the door to my bunk. She’s got a shit-eating grin on her face and a book in her hands.

“I hate you,” I say. I put a hand on my door.

“I warned you,” she says. “It’s for your own good.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “I just watched…” I pause, trying to find the right words. “Actually, I have no fucking clue what I just watched.”

“Probably exactly what you think you did.”

“What was that?”

She gives me a small smile.

“You know those stories you heard growing up? All those fairy tales about shadows in the woods and monsters under your bed?”

I nod slowly.

“Yeah, well, that’s the Winter Court. They’re the creatures you’re taught to fear. Once every couple of sites, Mab throws a party for her most beloved subjects.”

“Now you’re just being a bitch.”

“What?”

“You seriously expect me to believe that Mab — Mab, who is currently wearing a teddy as an evening gown — is the queen of the faeries? Like Shakespeare’s Queen of the Faeries?”

“She’s older than Shakespeare,” she says as though it’s obvious. “She just liked him well enough to let him write about her.”

I sigh and lean against the trailer, which makes the whole thing rock a little. Hopefully it didn’t wake anyone up.

“This place is fucked up,” I say.

“What was your first clue? Signing your name in blood?”

I close my eyes. The memory is vivid, the sear of pain as my name inked itself on the final line on a blurry page of contractual obligations. I hear the creak of Mel’s chair as she stands and steps over to me. She puts her hand on my shoulder.