Pig Heart counted off his last breaths.
The marks reacted to their first glimpse of the HawkEye soldier, and the Sirinese was knocked off balance by the crush of eager bodies. It was reprieve enough for the pitchman to attempt one last fight for life. He locked his grip around Hellequin’s forearm and together they were rising.
Pig Heart’s tiny watery eyes took in the speed of their lift, the sides of the tent slipping by in a flash as they shot towards the roof. His stomach flipped as they started a rapid descent. But then the motion swept them sideways, Pig Heart’s jowls dragging back off his tusks, the rush of air cooling his bloody snout. A gridded floor appeared under him and they dropped, landing on the deck in a painful mess of limbs.
Pig Heart breathed in gulps. He tasted the tannin stench of the zoo. The mesh beneath him reverberated and there was the oh-so-familiar buffering of heated air. He squinted past the rails that enclosed the platform. Lulu’s black trapeze swung towards him, receded far away, then swept back in again. He glanced down and saw Sore Earth drop away.
FOUR
Hellequin watched the pitch crew heave the last headless corpse over the rail, the Jeridian having sequestered the heads for her private collection. He imagined the cadaver flick-flacking out the open skirts of the tent below, a smear on the evening sky.
“Strike me again and I’ll chew your hand off,” Pig Heart muttered behind him. The threat won the pitchman another heavy slap.
Hellequin turned around, arms folded, and put his lower back against the rail.
“I don’t recall you adding that enthusiastic muscle to our fight, Lulu,” he said quietly. His HawkEye revolved as he fixated on the ladyboy.
Lulu lost his steel and looked tearful. “Hellequin, you chastise me? After what the bad man did?” He waved his handkerchief towards the pitchman, now suspended off a great iron hook alongside the ornate egg sack of Herb’s private quarters. A short girder was strapped across Pig Heart’s shoulders – forming a makeshift patibulum such as convicts might be forced to carry – his arms bound to it by hemp rope, his lower body left to dangle.
“I cannot begin to comprehend why you would save the brute. He stitched us up. He stitched Nim up.” Lulu gave Pig Heart a backhand, the pitchman roaring more in rage than anguish as he attempted to lurch forward. He only succeeded in aggravating the rope burns to his flesh. Wincing, he fell back.
“Enough, Lulu.” Perched on the steps to his personal quarters, Herb rotated his hat’s rim between his hands. Gone the theatrics and light he reserved for performances. His lips were tight, his eyes hard.
“You’re all sissies,” pouted Lulu. “Only reason any of us even got wind of D’Angelus’s band was because Hellequin overheard Pig Heart and his bitch conspiring to run out on us.” The ladyboy thrust a finger at the suspended pitchman, just short of a poke in the eye. “We should offload this shitter along with the rest of the dead bodies. See if pigs can fly.”
“Maybe we will. First we gotta get the facts of what happened back there. Sore Earth isn’t any old pitch – its ripe at the seams. Literally, which is how the mining boys got them great steaming worms eating up the land like they do. There’s traders there, and forges, hardware, printin’ press, apothecary, whore houses. Which attracts marks aplenty, all in need of a night out at the circus and the spending of new-mined dollars in their pockets.”
Herb’s face pinched. “So I gotta wonder what we gained and what we lost back there. Taking off before the end of our show is gonna stitch us up good. Then there’s the question of the marks we sliced and diced. And for 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.