The Damsel and the Daggerman (Blud #3)

Demi and the carnivalleros could wait to tell their stories.

Marco might not.

.7.

That night, Jacinda dressed in her most normal, boring clothes in hopes of blending in with the caravan’s audience. No steel pith helmet. No leather corset or canvas dress. No tribal layers and bells and scarves. Definitely no Almanican face paint or even desert kohl. Just a plain, well-fitting, wine-red dress, a few years out of date but of fine enough material to suggest she was a purposeful anachronism. She put up her hair as best as combs could hold the curls and dabbed just a bloom of rouge on her lips. Years in the sun with Liam had brought out her freckles, but she wore them proudly, like war paint, never hiding them under white powder as so many city girls did.

Although it pained her, she left her notebook and pen behind on the desk. Brutus, on the other hand, she would keep by her side. During the day, the caravan was quiet and safe. At night, there was no telling what dangers lurked in the shadows within the wagon’s circle and on the moors beyond.

Tucking three coins into her pocket with the watch, she said, “Brutus, follow,” and left the oil lamps burning. Long ago, she’d turned them off every time she left the conveyance to make fuel last longer. And then, one day, she’d found a man in her bed, waiting with a knife. Since then, she risked fire for the sake of illumination and kept the clockwork dog close whenever she went out after nightfall. The cuts on her hands had healed, but she was no longer as trusting of darkness.

Outside, she locked the door and took a deep breath. The caravan was a symphony of smells now, a mixture of sweet and salt and warm and spice that drew her forward as surely as the strings of lights swooping around the perimeter of the cars. She could have easily walked down two steps, across the grass, under the lights, and directly into the crowd forming around the puppet show, but she knew well enough that Criminy Stain was watching, wherever he was. She wasn’t a liar, and she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t about to break his rules, especially considering his unexpected generosity in regard to her interests. She had heard of his famous hatred of reporters and had expected him to toss her out on her bustle, possibly after half-draining her for upsetting his evening routine. But instead, here she was, taking the long way around the caravan, averting her eyes politely from the acts already in progress, and waiting her turn in the queue among city folk quivering with fear and excitement.

Criminy himself was waiting at the turnstile, clad in a somber black that made him seem one size smaller and twice as sinister as she remembered him during daylight.

“Admission’s a vial or a copper, miss,” he said with a smirk.

She put a copper on his red-gloved palm. “I don’t think I want you developing a taste for my blood. What’s your refund policy?”

“You get what you pay for here, love.”

He tossed the copper high in the air, where it flashed with lantern light and moon darkness. He held out his hand to catch it, but what landed across the red kid suede was a silver hatpin with a carved wood rose on the end. Jacinda’s hand flew to her hair, a gasp on her lips.

“I think you’ll be well rewarded for your time, Miss Harville.”

“Mrs. Harville.”

“Not anymore.”

She snatched up the pin in spite of his smirk and stuck it back in her hat. As much as she wished to pretend she didn’t storm off with flaming cheeks, that’s exactly what she did. And as much as she’d like to think she took her time enjoying the charms of the caravan, that’s not what she did, either. With the great clockwork dog a step behind her, she walked widdershins around the circle of wagons, to the well-trod spot where a repetitive musical thunk announced Marco’s skills. She’d watched him practice twice, but she had no idea what happened during his actual act.

The flavor of the carnival changed with each wagon. From the dizzy music of the dancing mistress to the tense silence under the tightrope walker to the cheerful horn of a clockwork monkey playing in time with the strong man’s squats to the tinny giddiness of Imogen’s butterfly circus, Jacinda absorbed it all like a greedy child in a candy store. She didn’t stop to savor any one act, but she couldn’t help but appreciate the universal excitement of the world Criminy had created, this glittery oasis in the dark sea of the moors.

Marco’s wagon was the same color as the cloudless night, blending seamlessly with the shadowed wilderness beyond the lights. As Jacinda approached, the hum of a gramophone needle picked up, followed by a fanfare of trumpets. Twin lights blinked on, making her see spots. Although Jacinda expected to see the spinning bull’s-eye she now knew so intimately, the setup was different on this side of the wagon. Of course, having met Mr. Murdoch, she would have been foolish to expect anything less than a masterpiece when it came to the caravan’s equipment.

The backdrop was painted to match the idyllic fields of a time gone by, bright and golden, with rolling hills and happy green trees as fluffy as candy floss. Just like the fancy stage sets she’d seen in Milano and Paris and London, there were several layers of independently moving parts that danced in time with the gramophone’s music, like a puppet show without strings or puppet master.

Down in front, wooden bludbunnies gamboled, their merry eyes at odds with their blood-tipped teeth. Behind them, a family of bluddeer leaped, the fawn’s eyes big and as melty as hot chocolate. Wooden birds swooped from the sky, and a bludrat darted among the bushes, its deep russet fur making it stand out among the muted pastoral hues. Jacinda squinted for just a moment, trying to uncover the secret of the clever mix of wood, paint, and clockwork. She immediately opted to enjoy the show and edged into the back of Marco’s crowd.

An explosive crack and a puff of smoke drew every eye to the figure materializing from the hazy white. Marco was clad all in black, looking even more deadly than the image in the newspaper Jacinda now kept rolled up in her desk. His hair was pulled back low, and he wore a bandanna like an airship pirate, keeping his eyes free of windblown locks. He might have disappeared against the night sky if not for the spotlight’s keen glare off the line of bright silver knives glinting from boots to shoulders, at least twice as many as he usually wore. As he posed and the audience clapped, Jacinda found herself daydreaming about pressing herself against his back and dropping the knives, one by one, from their loops to the ground, until his body was safe to explore without fear of the blades’ pointed tips.

With smooth, practiced movements, Marco reached for the knives at his shoulders and flung them simultaneously in time with the gramophone’s song. Twin flashes crossed in an X, and the knives flickered into two of the painted wooden birds flapping across the sky, one in each eye. The crowd clapped, and Marco’s mouth twitched just the tiniest bit.

Knife after knife flew at the targets in time with the music, seemingly straight from their loops. He made it look effortless, simple, as natural as a hawk swooping from the air to capture a bludbunny. The crowd’s gasps grew fewer and fewer as he went on without missing a single shot. As if he sensed the exact moment their attention hung at a precipice, he stopped and pulled the bandanna down over his eyes. As the city folk murmured and nudged one another around her, Jacinda couldn’t help focusing on Marco’s sensual mouth, his cheeks cleanly shaven, and that little, delectable place above his upper lip desperately in need of kissing.

She shook her head. Nibbling on Marco wasn’t part of the story.

With his eyes covered, he took more time with each throw, and the crowd cheered after each blade hit a target. Jacinda would have bet anything that he could see through the bandanna, no matter how opaque and thick it might look from the audience. The hesitation was purposeful, part of the act. But then again, he had said he liked taking his time. The way he had said it, however, meant something else entirely.

As the final knife thudded into the bright red bludrat, the last untouched target, the crowd went mad with wolf whistles, clapping, and the frantic wailing of overexcited women. Jacinda clapped politely, well aware that she was not the only one in the audience who’d been waiting to see Marco without protective ribbons of steel up his thighs. Pulling off his bandanna, he bowed and straightened. His grin told her plainly, told everyone, that he was well aware of the effect he had on women, and when he winked at a buxom girl in the front row, the little ninny fainted dead away. Jacinda considered it significant that he caught her eye, just after that, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

As the applause built to a crescendo, Marco raised both arms, threw them down, and disappeared in another burst of smoke. Moments later, the crowd quieted and dispersed, still whispering about the mysterious knife thrower and the darkly dangerous look in his eye, so different from the soft, bespectacled men of the city proper, with their top hats and paisley waistcoats. Jacinda waited until the last giggling girl had given up on seeing Marco again before she walked around the backdrop, which had gone still. From behind, the mechanics were visible, a tangled orchestra of metal, cogs, pistons, and gears. She was almost tempted to touch the delicate mechanisms, but she suspected that everything in the caravan was rigged to punish people who were too curious or too foolish.

“Looking for more answers?”

With a blush in her cheeks, Jacinda spun around to find Marco standing at the front of the backdrop, grasping a knife to pull it free of the wood. He looked so pompous and self-contained that she wanted to beat on his chest with her fists until he spilled his secrets like angry bees from a hive. One by one, he pulled out the knives and slipped them into their hooks, barely looking down as he worked. With nothing else to do and desperately in need of distraction, Jacinda knelt to yank a knife from a red-eyed bludbunny. It was easier than it looked. Instead of handing him the first one, she stayed where she was and reached for another.

“Your show seemed to go well.”

“They always do.”

“Why didn’t you use the spinning target? From earlier?”

She looked up in time to catch a fleeting grin. “That trick’s no good without a pretty girl. Are you volunteering?”