God.
The one she had prayed to in all those different churches.
The one she’d turned her back on.
Angela had never seen the pyramid from above before. The Great Wallendas had invented the seven-man pyramid in 1947; when their pyramid collapsed during a show in Detroit in 1962, two members of their troupe were killed and a third—like poor Carlo—had been paralyzed. But if the Wallendas had invented it, and the Guerreros had refined it, the Renaldos had perfected it. Even without its apex, it was still a sight to behold—a thin wire supporting four people, with two more on their shoulders, three stories above the crowd—
A crowd that was screaming, the sounds low and drawn out. And pointing, hands moving in slow motion.
She beat her wings once more, gaining even more height. Although she’d never done it before, flying to her was now like walking the wire—knowledge ingrained, no thought required, her body responding perfectly.
Up.
And up again.
She’d have preferred to become a bird—a lark, perhaps, or a jay. But he was a creature of the night; the gifts he bestowed were crepuscular, nocturnal.
A bat, then.
A bat who would fly to safety; a bat who would never fall.
Who could fly to safety ...
She had sold her soul to the devil, and yet—
And yet she was a minor. Delmonico’s Circus traveled to many jurisdictions. In some, the age of majority was eighteen; in others, nineteen; in others still, it was twenty-one.
But nowhere was it seventeen, the age she was now.
Or fifteen, the age she had been then.
Surely, this deal she’d made—this bargain with Satan—surely it could not be legally binding. Surely she could get out of it. And when would she have a better chance to make her case? If she flew high enough, surely she would catch God’s eye, just as Poppa had always said.
God was forgiving—whether mass was in English, Italian, or Latin, they all said that. God would forgive her, take her back, protect her. She had but to confess her sins within his hearing.
Another stroke of her wings.
And another.
Of course, she was still under the big top. She couldn’t just go up to escape. Rather, she had to go down.
Just not too far down ...
She folded her wings against her body, letting herself fall, confident that she could gain height again with another beat of the leathery membranes. It was an exhilarating fall, a thrilling fall, excitement rushing through her, a frisson passing over her. Her time sense contracted again, to let her enjoy the rush, experience the headlong, overwhelming pull of gravity, what she’d feared for so long now what she craved the most.
She had no doubt that she could stop her fall before she hit—he had promised, after all, and she wasn’t the first to have made a bargain with him. Thousands—millions—before her must have made similar deals; even if she herself didn’t intend to keep it, he would have to hold up his end as long as he thought he would eventually get her soul.
The screams from the crowd had risen in pitch as her time sense had returned to normal, but now they were growing deeper again as she neared the ground—close enough now to see the spiral galaxies of sawdust here and there, the circular pits of elephant footprints, the cloud-freckles caused by a spilled bag of popcorn.
She swooped now, heading out the great tent’s entrance, out into the circus ground proper, out into the stinging light of day.
And then, at once, she began to rise higher and higher and higher and higher, beating her wings furiously, gaining as much altitude as she could. Soon she was far above the big top. She longed to look down, to see the fairgrounds from this new perspective, see the trailers, the animal cages, the horizontal circle of the merry-go-round, the vertical circle of the Ferris wheel. But she couldn’t. She had to concentrate, just like when she was on the high wire, allowing no distractions, no stray thoughts.
Another beat of the wings, flying higher and higher and—
Pain.
Incredible pain—as though she’d hit a sheet of glass, hit the ceiling of the world.
No farther, said a voice in her head, a voice with a strange accent, a voice like liquid metal.
But she had to go higher—she had to catch the eye of God. She beat her wings again, and felt her face flatten—but not back into its original, human form. No, it was pressing against a transparency; there was no way to fly higher.
It’s too close to Him, said the same voice, answering her unasked question.
She wanted to beat her fists against the transparency, but she had no fists—only elongated fingers supporting membranous wings. If she could just get God’s attention—
You’re not trying to cheat me, are you? said the splashing metallic voice in her head.
Her breathing was ragged from fighting so hard to break through the transparency. “No,” she gasped. “No, I’m not.”
I have a confession, he said. I lied when I said Carlo had turned me down; I lie a lot. He did take the deal, but he, too, tried to break it.
“And so you let him fall?” The words were forced out; her lungs were raw.
He didn’t fall, said the voice. He jumped. He thought if he jumped, then the deal would be broken. Oh, yes, he would die, but his soul would go up, not down. A pause. The irony was too much for me to resist: for one who had come so close to touching the heavens to now not even be able to stand—a perfect living hell.
“No,” said Angela, the words a hoarse whisper. “No, please—not that. Don’t make me fall.”
Of course not, splashed the voice. Of course not.
Angela breathed a sigh of relief.
For you, something different.
She was hit by an explosion of hot air, like the exhalation of a blast furnace, air so hot that sweat evaporated from her skin as soon as it beaded up. The wind slapped her like an open-palmed hand, pushing her down, down, down. Its impact had slammed her wings against her body, had flattened her little pink skirt against her thighs, had, she was sure, plastered her bat-ears flat against her skull once more. She tried to unfurl the wings, spreading her arms, splaying her protracted fingers, fingers as long as her legs. But the wind continued to blow, hot as hell, and she found herself tumbling, head over heels. Instinct took over, and instead of trying to extend her arms, she drew them in now to protect her face, her torso. Soon she was only a few meters above the ground, a ball of tightly wound limbs being pushed laterally through the air.
No, no. She had to fight her instincts. It was like being on the high wire. Do what your eyes tell you to do, and you’ll fall for sure; the human mind wasn’t made for such heights, such perspectives. She forced her arms to unfurl, forced the wings to try once more to catch the air, and—
Such pain, pain so sharp it made her wish her spinal cord was severed.
The wings were burning now, sheets of flame attached to her elongated, bony fingers. She could feel the membranes crisping, reducing to ash. Her long digits raked the air, but there was nothing much spread between them now to catch it—just a few singed and tattered pieces of skin. Incredibly, her clothes remained intact—or, perhaps not so incredibly, for all circus clothing had to be flame retardant ...
She curled her sticklike fingers, as if clawing for purchase—but there was nothing but air, blisteringly hot, a wind from Hades propelling her along past the freak show, haunted faces looking up, past the arcade, children agape, past the fortune teller’s tent, the line of suckers somehow parting just in time to permit her passage barely above their heads, farther and farther still, toward—