what?” He pointed at the zoo platform overhead. “To save our women, hmm, Pig Heart? Was that the way of it? Thought you’d sell one piece of ass then take exception when D’Angelus wanted a second into the bargain. Ain’t that touching?” Moving up to the top stair – a needless boost to his height since Herb relied on iron will and not size to intimidate – he gestured to the pitch crew as if welcoming their agreement. “Pig and wolf rutting it up.”
The sourness of the image reflected in the pitch crew’s murmured distaste.
Herb cut them off with a raised hand. “Only, this ain’t a summer dance and I ain’t no matchmaker.” He fed his hat under an arm and strode down the steps. With the might to hire and fire at will, he caused a small shuffle of polite feet among the pitch crew. A few flopped off their caps.
Cyber Circus’s king pin eased under the dangling pitchman and brought his head in near to Pig Heart’s.
“No one asked you to beat on D’Angelus’s men,” he hissed.
“D’Angelus was gonna peddle Rust as a whore. She’s one of us. Don’t that mean something to ya, Herb?” Pig Heart’s muscles bulged. The hemp rope rubbed against his flesh with a papery whisper.
“Us? So there’s an us now, hey, Pig Heart? And there was me thinking there was only a you.” Herb gave the pitchman a push, prompting the patibulum girder to rock slightly on its iron hook. Turning away, he stared at Hellequin and slung a thumb over a shoulder. “So what motivated you to keep ahold of this grunt?”
Hellequin parted his frockcoat and put his hands on his hips. “No carny’s the keeper of the other. That’s what he told me earlier this evening. I decided to prove him wrong.”
“Ain’t you the fool!” Herb’s mouth got mean. “I don’t know what they taught you about comradeship in the military, but here that don’t mean shit. When it comes to who gets a handshake and who gets spit on, I’m in charge! Only thing you need to worry about is the money in your hand and how to keep them marks happy.”
Hellequin watched Herb cross back to the steps, the readjustments of the HawkEye transposed into small jerks of his head.
“And Nim? Isn’t she an asset worth defending?” His tone was measured.
Herb rested a pulpy arm on the stair banister. He let out a sigh. “Hellequin, Hellequin. Day I start treating Desirious Nim like an asset is the day she’ll pack up her unmentionables and jump ship. You got a hunk of hardware stitched into your eye and you still can’t see the truth about those around you. Nim asks for protection anytime, I’ll see about getting her some muscle offa the crew. But so long as she don’t ask, I’m gonna presume she’s had her fill of guards at the door. I’m gonna presume the real freedom she earns here is worth the imagined dangers.”
“Nothing imagined about those gimps raping her this evening.” Hellequin drew up to his full height, a hand hovering at the hilt of his sheathed bowie knife. “The pimp was never going to pass up the chance to get Nim back. Why’d you bring us here, Herb?”
A beetle’s wing of gilt green opened up in Herb’s coach. Nim stepped out of the door and down onto the top step. She wore an angular black robe with a wide red sash.
“Because, as Herb says, Sore Earth is a rich seam and Cyber Circus is a business,” she said choppily, adding, “Thanks for letting me rest up a while, Herb.”
The ringmaster nodded.
Nim’s spectacular red eyes settled on Hellequin. “D’Angelus’s men. You halted their assault.” She drew the sign of the Saints’ arc across her brow with a fingertip and inclined her head. “I am indebted to you.”
“You don’t need Saints’ oaths with a HawkEye. The desire to protect is written into my Daxware.” Hellequin’s steel eye was still at last, focused fully on Nim. His hand left the hilt of his bowie knife.
“So now we get to it!” Herb tapped Nim’s hand as if she was his confidant, but the volume of his voice spoke to all. “The HawkEye didn’t save the pitchman because he thinks us carnies look out for our own, even if they are despicable sell-their-own-motha shysters. Oh no, he saved the pig because his hardwiring gives him no say so in the matter.”
Hellequin crossed his arms, exposing the frayed fabric badge of the HawkEye platoon on one shoulder – a circle within a circle, stitched in off-white thread. The pocketed grey pants he wore were ripped at the knees. His boots were black clothhod leather, steel plated at the heel.
“I still think for myself,” he muttered.
“Oh no you don’t. Not if you work at Cyber Circus.” Herb went to push past Nim. He paused to allow her to step down then put a foot inside his front door. As an afterthought, he turned his head towards the assembled company and shook his hat at them. “Whatta we do with Pig Heart then? I gotta have a chief pitchman and he’s it. Has been for the longest time and I’m loathe to let a good man go. But he’s got a pocketful of dollars from betraying us. So do we sling him overboard or let him chop it in the breeze a while? Pitch crew come and go so I’m gonna stick with asking the main acts. Lulu? I got an inkling I know what you’re gonna say.”
The ladyboy ran delicate hands over the tutu lace at his hips. “Toss the bastard.”
“And Hellequin? I’m guessing you’re for keeping the swine alive?”
Fixated on Nim, Hellequin said, “Let him chop it in the breeze if it will satisfy a need for retribution.”
Herb’s finger of command passed to Nim.
“Whaddaya say, Nim?”
“If the pig’ll sell us out once, he’ll sell us out again.”
“I’ll take that as a vote to dump his ass. What about you kids?” Herb squinted at the far end of the platform where the fat burp pipes of the heating system wove in amongst the polyps of float bladders. “Come outta the dark a second will ya and let’s get this over with.”
Armadillidium balls, the colour of inner eyelids and the height of Hellequin’s knee, rolled out into the gaslight. Each pinkish exoskeleton unrolled to reveal a soft inner belly shaped like a child. Two girls, one boy, unfolding gangly red-crusted legs and two great claws.
“Tip him over,” said one girl. Her face had a puckered quality, like skin soaked in water.
The other girl gave her sibling a knock on the carapace with a club-hand. “I like the pig man. He rolls me in the dust to buff my shell.”
“Keep him. His head makes a good scratching post,” said the boy, speaking with the same fat vowelled lisp that affected all three.
“Two for, one against. So far we’re drawing even.” Herb looked agitated. “Guess it’s left to me to be the one to call it.”
“What about my say, you sack of shitters?” called Pig Heart, rattling on his cross. Slaver dripped from his mouth to the ground.
“Forfeited your say the second you pocketed D’Angelus’s blood money,” shot Herb. “Ah, to hell with it. Send the pig overboard. I ain’t got time nor inclination to watch my back for fear he’ll stick the knife in.” He slapped a hand through the air, dismissive of further appeal from Pig Heart, and went to shut the door.
“Bare men mustn’t kill the pig. Its mine,” interrupted a sibilant voice. Long fury limbs appeared over the lip of the platform overhead and fed slowly down onto the railing enclosing Herb’s personal platform. Rust squatted on the rail, ratty hair amassed at her shoulders, black eyes shining out from a filthy face.
“Just because you and the swine can’t resist your bestial impulses does not give him room for reprieve,” cut in Lulu. He flinched as the wolf girl leapt down and raced towards him on all fours. She drew up just short of the ladyboy, fingers bracing the metal floor, her muscular thighs skimming sideways.
“And it with titties and a shlong.” Rust gnashed, a glint to her eye. “Cyber Circus is full of beasts and freaks. The pig is mine. Give it back. I will tear out its heart if it does bad stuff again.”
“You’re vouching for the pitchman, Rust? It’ll be up to you to keep him in line else I’ll have you tossed back out onto the salt plains where I found you.”
Rust nodded. Herb slumped at the shoulders, tired with it all.
“I ain’t no hunk of flesh to be whored out or mithered over.” Pig Heart buckled against the strut at his back. “Hell, Herb, fifteen years you and me have been working Cyber Circus. We’ve been through the lot of it, and you’re gonna rat me out on one mishap?”
Herb squinted over. “You sold me out, swine. Me! Not the whore. Not the wolf. You sold out my acts and put the real lady here in danger.” He held up his hands and gestured to the reverberating cavern around them. Tenderness came into his eyes, replaced with a razor edge as his gaze returned to the pitchman. “History don’t mean nothin’ if you’re gonna switch sides and play a different game.”
He thrust a finger at Hellequin. “Bitch gets her wish. Pig Heart stays. But he pays and you’re gonna make sure of it.” His finger shifted to the Jeridian woman. “Name?”
“Asenath.” The Jeridian titled her chin, exposing her throat piercings. She wore her hair in a giant Mohawk.
