‘What did he do to you, this clown?’
‘I first saw him at the Empire Fair, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where I used to live. It was so long ago now that I can’t even remember when it was. I saw him smiling at me through the crowd and I smiled back at him, and he gave me this little wave with his fingers. Then I took the children home and he was waiting for me, in my living room. How he got there before me and how he got into my house I shall never know.
The dog-woman’s eyes suddenly filled up with tears. ‘That was the end of my happiness. That was when hell started.’
‘This clown—’ Xyrena prompted her.
‘Most of the freaks call him Mago Verde, or the Green Magician, but Zachary always calls him Gordon. Zachary — he’s the Freakmaster — he’s in charge of all of the living exhibits, like me.’
‘Gordon — that wouldn’t be Gordon Veitch by any chance?’
‘I don’t know. I only know Gordon.’
‘And he’s still here now, with the carnival?’
Elizabeth nodded. ‘Yes. But he’s always coming and going. Sometimes he disappears for days on end, but then he comes back and shuts himself up in his caravan for weeks and nobody sees him. All of the other clowns hate him. The freaks hate him and the animal trainers hate him. But the Grand Freak thinks he’s wonderful. The Grand Freak treats him as if he was Jesus Christ, almost.’
The dog-woman was out of breath now, and panting painfully. Xyrena waited for a few moments, and then she said, ‘The Grand Freak? Who the hell is the Grand Freak?’
‘Brother Albrecht. He calls himself the Grand Freak because he wants everybody to pity him. He doesn’t want anybody to forget that he was beautiful once and how much he’s suffered. But he doesn’t care how cruel he is to other people. He loves to see them tortured — even little children.
She paused again, to catch her breath. Then she said, ‘Please kill me. Please. I tried to strangle myself with my collar, and once I tried to bite off one of my paws so that I bled to death, but Brown Jenkin found me, both times.’
‘Who’s Brown Jenkin?’
The dog-woman gave a shivery shake of her head. ‘He’s a what rather than a who. Half a human being and half a rat. But he helps Zachary to keep his eye on all of us freaks, just to make sure we don’t harm ourselves. I’m sure that he has some kind of a sixth sense, because when one of us can’t take it any more, and wants to end it all, he always sniffs it out, and stops us.’
Xyrena said, gently, ‘Tell me your name.’
‘My name? You don’t need to know my name to kill me. It would be easier for you if you didn’t know it.’
‘Please, tell me your name.’
‘Elizabeth. But my husband always called me Betsy.’
‘Well, listen, Elizabeth, I can’t kill you.’
‘Why not? You said you’re a warrior. Don’t you have a gun?’
‘I couldn’t kill you if I wanted to because you’re still real.’
‘What are you telling me? That this is only a nightmare? Then how come I never wake up?’
‘Because this carnival is all a dream, but not your dream. It’s Brother Albrecht’s dream. Over the years he’s imprisoned dozens of real people inside of it, so that they can’t escape. We think that he sends this Gordon character back to the waking world to find victims for him — innocent men and women just like you — and then he brings them back here and turns them into freaks for his carnival.’
‘So you can’t kill me but I can’t ever get away?’
‘You can get away, Elizabeth, and you will, just as soon as we can deal with the less-than-brotherly Brother Albrecht. And Gordon the Clown, too, while we’re at it.’
Tears were streaming down Elizabeth’s filthy cheeks and she was shivering with misery. Jemexxa put her hand through the bars of the cage and stroked her tangled hair. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Trust us. Just let us break up this carnival and then you’ll be free. Our mom’s here, too — the Demi-Goddess. We want to save her, too.’
Elizabeth was too exhausted to say any more. She crept back to her bed of straw and lay down, her ribcage rising and falling with effort.
Xyrena said to Dom Magator, ‘Did you pick up any of that?’
‘Yes, most of it, especially that Grand Freak stuff. Good going, Xyrena.’
He said something else, but his voice was drowned out by another drum roll from the big top, and another fanfare of trumpets, and more applause.
‘I think it’s time we went in and took a look-see,’ said Xyrena.
Jekkalon said, ‘There’s a flap in the canvas in back, that’s how we got out the last time. With any luck we should be able to sneak in without too many people seeing us.’
Jemexxa looked up at the thundery clouds. ‘I think I could use some charge first.’
She reached behind her and twisted two L-shaped levers, one on each side of the rack of storage cells on her back. Then she raised both hands, palms outward, as if she were praying to some Native American sky deity. In fact she was dowsing for negative electrical charges building up in the clouds — that type of cloud-to-cloud-to-ground lightning known as an ‘anvil crawler.’ At first she felt only a slight tingling sensation in the tips of her fingers, but as she slowly moved her hands to the right, the tingling became an uncomfortable prickling, like nettle rash, and then a sharp fizzing sensation that penetrated right under her fingernails. Within less than thirty seconds, however, she had located the point of maximum atmospheric tension — well over a hundred kiloamperes. It was located only about three and a half miles away, in a huge black cloud that was hanging over the summit of a hill. She lifted her hands higher and waited.
‘This is not going to take too long, is it, honey?’ asked Xyrena. ‘We need to get into that big top before one of these freaks catches us and turns us into poodles.’
Jemexxa didn’t answer her. She knew that there was no need, because a few seconds later a fan-shaped array of lightning lit up the clouds, spitting and shriveling like burning human hair. Four or five branches jumped directly toward her and struck the open palms of her hands. There was a sharp crack and a superheated blast of air which almost knocked them over and for a few moments they were all blinded. But with a high-pitched jittering noise, like a horde of rats scuttling up a drainpipe, the charges ran up the insulated cables on Jemexxa’s arms, and into the capacitors on her back, and she promptly twisted the two L-shaped levers back to their closed position, and snapped them shut.
She glanced up at the head’s-up display inside her helmet. It read 270c.
‘That should more than do it. Two hundred seventy coulombs.’
Jekkalon said, ‘That’s incredible. I even know what a coulomb is. How the hell do I know what a coulomb is? I flunked every single science subject when I was in high school.’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Xyrena. ‘I don’t understand any of this Night Warriors malarkey. But suddenly I know things that I never ever knew I knew. I even know who wrote In The Good Old Summertime, would you believe?’
Jekkalon said, ‘Dom Magator? We’re going to enter the big top now. Not by the front entrance — we’re going in back.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll have An-Gryferai keep you under close surveillance, and Zebenjo’Yyx and me will move in closer and cover you. If it comes to any shooting, though, make sure that you hit the deck real quick. Zebenjo’Yyx isn’t called the Arrow Storm for nothing, and I’ll be toting my Absence Gun and my Boomerang Knife.’
‘Be careful, though,’ put in Jemexxa. ‘Most of these people are innocent victims, and some of them are real.’