I feel someone come up beside me, and my eyes track over to the conjurer kid who’s made it over to my side. With brown hair that flops over his head like a mop, blue eyes, and traces of adolescent acne, he can’t be more than fifteen. But he’s a conjurer, and a damn powerful one at that. I’m sure that’s why the vamps keep him.
“You ready?” I murmur, keeping my eyes on the stage.
The young male cracks his knuckles in a nervous gesture as his eyes dart over to the vamps, but no one is paying us any attention. Not while the females are in the crescendo of their performance, all the added effects further hypnotizing everyone. If I wasn’t already immune from years of exposure, I’d be entranced too. It’s not called Troupe Delirium for nothing.
I feel tendrils of worry wafting from the kid. “I don’t know…” he mumbles.
I can tell how nervous he is just by looking at him. I don’t even need my power to tell me that, but my magic ensures that I feel it like a light rainfall, drops saturating my clothes and adhering to my skin like cool sweat.
“We made a deal,” I remind him. “Four nights ago, remember? When I found you looting through the dumpsters out back, looking for bottles of alcohol to get you through the night.”
He swallows hard and wipes his forehead with his sleeve. “Yeah, I fucking remember. I just...I don’t know if this is a good idea.”
“You said yourself you needed the money,” I remind him quietly, careful to keep my voice low and even. I don’t dare raise it. Even with the pulsing music, vampire hearing is superb. “Or do you want to keep being a vampire pet forever?”
His face flushes with anger. “I’m not a pet,” he grumbles, keeping his body in the shadows of the curtain at our backs. “No one else was offering me a fucking life when they took me in off the streets. I just didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know that once you’re owned, they won’t ever not own you,” I guess.
He nods stiffly.
I give him a placating look. “All owners are the same.” I point from my collar over to the necklace of bite wounds around his own neck. “Just because our collars are different doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like. We can help each other. Everything is going to plan, and the final act is nearly over. The fight is about to begin. No one will know.”
Panic flares in his eyes at the ebbing timeline. We don’t have long. Two minutes, and their dance will be over.
“W-well, maybe I changed my mind,” he stutters. “Maybe I can find another way that won’t get me fucking killed either by them or your crazy ass troupe master.”
I turn my entire body until my sole focus, my very demeanor, is bearing down on him. The kid’s eyes widen for a second before he cowers, and I hate myself a little bit for it. But this is the eleventh hour, and I’m not letting this chance slip through my fingers. Not after searching for so long.
I’m not a hard man. I’m not gruff or scary. I’ve been molded to be on stage. Handsome. Polished. An object of desire. Easy to approach, easier to give bets to. Trustworthy. But that’s my stage presence. My mask. There’s a world of pent-up hidden anger behind it all. And sometimes, like right now, I let it slip through the cracks.
The kid takes a step back, his expression letting me know that he’s just now seeing me as someone to fear. Our daily training keeps me at my physical peak, so I’m trim, but strong. Yet because of my halo of bright blond hair, I always get sidled with the role of the hero. But right now, I’m not playing the hero. For Jetta, I’m more than willing to be the villain.
“You will do this,” I begin quietly, my voice barely audible over the pulsing staccato of music. “Because you agreed to it.”
When he opens his mouth to reply, probably to argue, I settle my hand on his shoulder, and he immediately swallows his words. My power is already extended out of me in a hundred different directions like strings cast off from a fisherman’s pole, connecting to nearly everyone in the room.
The only outside indication that my power is in use comes from the blue tattoo of four interlocking triangles with the single line set on the top of them located on my left bicep. It will be glimmering slightly right now, but it’s always covered, hidden from perceptive eyes.
One more string doesn’t make a difference to the amount of power I’m already using to keep the vamps in this place pulsing with confidence. So I easily cast out another line that only I can see, and fling it toward the conjurer kid.
My string finds his dwindling confidence buried in his fear, and I hook into it, yanking on it until my line pulls taut. I reel it in like a resigned fish, its tailfin already stopped flapping. The tension immediately eases off him, his entire posture changing as his eyes lose the sharp edge of his defensive fear.
“Sorry, man,” he says, shaking his head. “I was just freaking out. I’m cool now,” he assures me.
I pat him on the back and let my hand drop. “Good. You know what to do, and like I said, no one will be able to tell. There’s so much magic pumping in here, Kaazu won’t suspect a thing, and you’ll have more than enough money to get far away from these vamps,” I tell him easily. “Do you have enough juice?”
He flexes his fingers where they hang at his sides. “Definitely.”
“Good.”
Uproarious applause marks the end of the performance, and my eyes rush over to the stage where Master Kaazu is now walking to the center, while Jetta and the others stand behind him, their skin glistening with a thin layer of perspiration. Kaazu raises his hands to quiet the praise, his dark eyes glittering with satisfaction as he looks over the crowd.
Black hair slicked back like always, he doesn’t have a single strand out of place. He’s wearing one of his signature colored suits, of course, this one made of deep burgundy that shimmers at the lapel and collar. Every inch of him is put together with meticulous purpose.
He’s the ringleader of the circus, the host of our macabre show. He built this barbaric demonstration and somehow made it into a thing of beauty that makes him filthy rich.
With a burnished skin tone and a body that exudes pride and charisma, he’s a showstopper in his own right, especially with his black beard cut to look like thorny vines curled around his jaw.
“Wonderful, aren’t they?” he calls out, his lips curving up as he taps the decorative cane that he’s holding on the wooden floor. “Now it’s time for the finale.” That word creates a buzz in the room. A hundred vampires lean forward, ready for blood to be spilled.
I just hope it’s not Jetta’s.
2
Heathcliff
It’s time. Now or never. And if this goes badly...then my life, this kid’s life, and maybe even Jetta’s life, will be forfeit. But I have to try. I can’t back out.
“Now,” I tell the kid, pushing him between the shoulders. “While he’s distracted.”
With a terse nod, the kid disappears behind the curtain.
I set up this part of the backstage, so I know for a fact that there’s a small space between a wooden lean-to behind the curtain, cutting off the rest of the back area. Just enough space for a skinny conjurer to stand at the edge of the stage.