The footfall was whisper-soft.
“Enšā Dianāh.” The conclusion of his prayer.
He was on his feet in seconds, fists tensed by his hips, the reflection of the moon captured across his brow bolt plate.
“Need company?” The boy cocked out a hip. One smooth brown leg protruded from the slit sarong. It hinted at the just hidden sex above.
“No,” Hellequin snapped. “No, thank you,” he appended in a softer tone, nose to his Jackogin glass.
“Sure, sah? I can nibble your pinto. Like a little mouse.” The boy brought his hands to his mouth and gnawed some imaginary morsel. He went too far when his scrawny fingers reached for Hellequin’s groin. The soldier gripped the boy’s wrist.
“You’re not my flavour, runt!”
“Oh, tish tish. No need to manhandle the locals, Hellequin.” Lulu arrived alongside them at the bar, kohl-eyed and dripping sequins. He laid a delicate hand over Hellequin’s. “The boy is a baby, not used to violence. Unless you pay extra.”
Hellequin let go of the kid’s wrist. His amber lens retracted inside the steel eye socket.
“How old are you, boy?”
The kid attempted to fondle Hellequin’s ear. This time, Lulu chastised him with a slap to the jaw.
“I’m guessing not twelve years old yet and already acting like a jaded hag. Is it the salt in the air which sees you past your prime so soon in this neighbourhood?”
“Is the sad old queen jealous? Johns prefer to stick it to a dung brick than your wrinkled ass?”
While the frown was still forming at Lulu’s brow, Hellequin had already drawn his bowie knife and pressed it up under the boy’s chin. The blue blade reflected oilily in the gaslight.
It was warning enough. The kid melted back into the crowd.
Hellequin produced a rag from his waistcoat pocket and ran it smoothly along the blade.
“Gutter bug!” Lulu bit his thumb at the boy’s disappearing back. Sidling onto a corroded steel stool, he raised a finger to the bartender, a Jeridian with red skin, oval eyes and a ladder of piercings down his throat. The man poured a measure of Jackogin into a metal beaker. Lulu slid coins across the bar.
Crossing his legs neatly, the ladyboy took a swig from the beaker, his Adam’s Apple bobbing. He cradled his drink between painted fingers. “Good thing you addressed that situation in the prison this afternoon. Herb might like to crown himself king pin, but outside the walls of Cyber Circus, he’s just a fat old man in an ugly hat.”
Hellequin stared into his beaker of liquor; the glossy surface showed the opposing rotations of the twin rings as his steel eye focused in. The lens dulled to an ember glow. “It’s what I was trained to do,” he said.
“That’s hardly accurate, is it?” Lulu waved a hand in front of his mouse eyes. “HawkEyes were created as look outs, time travellers whose job it was to glimpse the future and act on it before the enemy. This need of yours to protect the circus and all who sail in her, it’s touching, my darling, but it’s got nothing to do with your time as a soldier.” The ladyboy bit his bottom lip. “Is it that we’re all the family you got?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Really?” Lulu stared intently at Hellequin and his pious expression broke into a frown. “You’re teasing me.” His hurt was quickly replaced with resignation. “Keep your reasons stitched up inside then. I’ve no use for them. All I know is I feel a whole lot safer with a HawkEye to watch over us.”
“Nice to know someone does.” Hellequin sipped from his beaker.
“Oh, if you’re talking about Nim, she’s been sliced, diced and prettied up with wires, and still there’s not a soul in Humock can tame her.” Lulu got a far away stare. “In some ways, she’s even wilder than Rust.”
“Shame she hasn’t got Rust’s claws.”
“Yet despite your perceiving her as a creation of blown glass, she endures. And happily.” Lulu gestured past the soldier’s shoulder. Hellequin twisted around in his seat. The drinkers had parted to reveal Nim, perched on one of the large salt rocks that served as tables. She was talking with the Jeridian, Asenath. The women appeared to share a joke. Asenath laughed and Nim’s eyes filled with warmth.
Jealousy curled like a snake inside Hellequin’s gut. He chastised himself. Lulu was right. Nim had been sliced and diced and screwed with. Last thing she needed was another man making demands on her.
Lulu leant in. “Those two girls are having a good time. I bet that just eats you up inside, hmmm?” He gestured to Nim with his lace handkerchief. “Apart from the obvious, what is it that gets you so fired up about Miss Nim there?”
“They re-stitched her too.” The statement was unexpectedly honest.
Lulu’s tremulous eyes grew wide. “You’re drawn to her out of kinship? Oh my darling, Nim is never going to thank you for it. See, her...alterations.” Lulu chose the word with care. “...were none consensual. And what do you know about Nim, Hellequin, aside from her public face or the shrew who shoos you from her dressing room? Do you know she was nine when she got sold into D’Angelus’s whorehouse, or that it was a soldier who had snatched her from her parents’ farm and tired of her days later, or that the reason she was chosen for the surgery was because she’s part Jeridian? They heal better,” Lulu supplied in answer to Hellequin’s silent enquiry. He smiled sympathetically. “She’s unusual. Most times Jeridian genes don’t mix outside their own, but now and then, a Pinkie is made. That soft pink sparkle skin of hers, it’s not down to synthetic light fibres alone. And the eyes, Hellequin. Those beautiful red teardrops? Jeridian-made.”
“And you’d know this how?” Hellequin watched Nim place a hand against her neck as she smiled, almost as if she was afraid to let the happiness out.
“I was Nim’s valet for a while.” Lulu danced a fingertip around the rim of his beaker, allowing Hellequin time to absorb the fact. Not that it made anything except sense to hear that Nim and Lulu had once been connected so intimately, thought the HawkEye, raking a hand through his hair. He’d knowledge enough of brothels to know top earning girls were cared for at both a mercantile and medicinal level by ladyboys – individuals who posed no threat to the girls sexually and who came in handy as an additional resource for customers with a more eclectic palette. But why had Lulu kept the information secret until now?
“You noticed my absence when D’Angelus came knocking. Yes, I’m not the bravest of souls in a fight. Using one’s fists can be very wearing on the nails.” The ladyboy held up his painted talons to the gaslight. His lips trembled. “I’m nothing to D’Angelus – unlike Nim, he didn’t notice if I lived or perished – but if Herb knew about me and Nim...” Lulu patted his moist eyes with his handkerchief. “I can hear Herb now. ‘Too much baggage. Too much of D’Angelus’s property stowed aboard.’”
“So you follow Nim around like botfly larva,” said Hellequin harshly. His eye piece zoomed in on a bob of swallowed salvia in Lulu’s throat. Fresh hurt.
Lulu stared over at Nim. “It’s hard not to,” he said softly.
Hellequin telescoped in on the soft pink light at Nim’s bare shoulder. “Want to know why I fight for every member of this circus?”
Lulu didn’t answer, perhaps afraid to interrupt the confession.
“Because the Zen monks say there’s not a sin the Saints can’t forgive.”
The admission clearly disappointed the ladyboy.
“You don’t think Religion sits well as my motivation? You’re right.” The twin bone ridges protruded at Hellequin’s brow. “The Zen monks say that, but it isn’t true. My sin is unforgiveable.” He pushed up the sleeves of his faded frock coat. He might have been pushing back deeper layers. “You said Nim had her body modifications forced on her while I chose mine. The truth is I didn’t have a choice either.”