I’d just reached the place where Reggie hung out—a dark alcove between a stack of cursed pirate gold and a pile of open caskets—and flipped in my plastic vampire fangs, when I heard voices.
“This place is a wreck.” It was a male voice, snotty and superior. “Did you see that bearded lady? She looked like she had mange.”
“You couldn’t be more right.” Another male voice, deeper and even more superior. It instantly put me on edge. “The carousel is broken, the hall of mirrors needs a good Windexing, and where’s the gentleman who bites the heads off chickens?”
Hmph. No one did that anymore, the chicken-biting thing. Too many upset vegetarian customers. This guy was a jerk.
“The whole place is coming apart,” said the first voice, growing louder. Great. Their carriage was coming toward me, which meant I was supposed to jump out and scare them. Maybe I could skip it. They probably wouldn’t be impressed with me, either. “They must have a seriously pathetic demon familiar.”
You’ve probably been wondering how much of the dark carnival was real and how much was fake. Marks always do. The answer is some, and some. The answer is that it’s as real as you want, and as fake as you hope. And the answer is that everything at the carnival that couldn’t be explained, everything that sparked of real magic, was because of Mephit. Mephit was like a battery, and he made us light up.
Pathetic. At that I felt an explosion of rage. Mephit was not pathetic. He was an avatar of ancient evil! How dare they!
Without pausing to think, I leaped out of the alcove as their carriage swung into view. With an eldritch scream, I hurled my slushie at the oncoming carriage.
There was a bellow of rage. The carriage jerked to a halt, and I found myself staring into the angry, scarlet-soaked faces of my uncle Walter and his stepson, Lucas, the boy who’d thrown up on me ten years ago.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, I was still in shock. Uncle Walter had ushered me into the well-appointed trailer he’d driven onto the fairground. I had to admit, it was fancy. The walls were real wood paneling, and there was gleaming chrome and brass everywhere.
Uncle Walter helped me onto a velvet sofa while Lucas disappeared, glowering, down the hallway to wash off the slushie. A door banged closed and then a shower turned on.
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“Nonsense.” Uncle Walter looked like a picture of my dad taken with an unfocused lens. Everything about him was sort of blurry, including his blurry brownish eyes and indistinct jawline. His hands were pink and soft. “A girlish prank. Nothing to apologize for.”
More thumping came from the back of the trailer. Lucas had stalked behind us all the way from the Tunnel of Terror, refusing to look at or speak to me. He’d taken the full force of the cherry-flavored ice. Uncle Walter had been spattered, but Lucas looked like he’d been slaughtering Muppets.
Uncle Walter leaned forward. “I hope you can think of me as a second father.”
“My father’s not dead.”
“Well, no. I didn’t mean as a replacement. More just … as an addition.”
“Can’t I think of you as an uncle?” I asked hopefully.
At that moment, Lucas stomped out into the living room. He was scowling and pulling on a T-shirt. I’m an honest kind of girl, so I’ll admit I stared. He was wearing low-slung jeans and a gray, much-washed concert tee that clung to him in all the right places. I hadn’t noticed his muscles, on the walk back from the Tunnel, or the fact that he had jet-black hair and green eyes, my favorite combination. A silver chain with all sorts of lockets and pendants on it was slung around his neck, but the jewelry didn’t make him look girly. Quite the opposite.
I shut my mouth, not wanting Uncle Walter to catch me leering at his stepson. I didn’t remember Lucas having blazing sex appeal from the last time we’d met, but nobody looks their best when they’re throwing up on you.
“You ruined my shirt,” he said. “My favorite shirt.”
“Lucas,” Uncle Walter said. “Lulu has been through a time of personal tragedy. Don’t you think we should be generous?”
Lucas thought about it. “No.”
Someone knocked on the door. Scowling, Lucas opened it. It was Strombo, the animal trainer. Mostly he was in charge of the cats—the lions and tigers—but he also trained the rats to perform the Dance of Death. People get really freaked out by rats; I don’t know why. I like them, myself.
“Boss,” he said, and I saw with a pang that he was looking at Uncle Walter. My dad had always been boss. “We’ve locked up for the night. Everyone’s gathered in the tent for the meeting.”
“Thank you, my good man,” Walter said. “I’ll be there momentarily. I’m sure they’ll find what I have to say about the future direction of the carnival … inspiring.”
“If you say so, boss.” Strombo was about to leave when Walter placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ll be inspecting the animals tomorrow.” Walter’s voice dropped. “I’ll be deciding which stay and which go. Prepare yourself for a new regime.”
Strombo looked worried. He never let go of any animals, not even Throckmorton, the toothless panther. And he probably didn’t know what regime meant.
There was an awkward silence when the door shut behind Strombo. Walter heaved himself to his feet. He was a skinny guy, but he gave the impression of someone with a weight on his shoulders. “I need the trailer to myself for a moment. Lulu, Lucas, perhaps you can show yourselves to the tent for the meeting.” He chuckled. “Lulu and Lucas. Sounds like you were made for each other!”
My cheeks grew warm. Lucas glared. His hair was still dripping. He reminded me of a cup of coffee: wet, hot, and bitter. I tried to decide if it was immoral to lust after your step-cousin. I figured it wasn’t. We weren’t actually related. No shared blood.
I bounced up off the couch. “Not a problem.”
* * *
It was a perfect summer night, with fireflies blinking in the fields surrounding the carnival. I led Lucas toward the center of the fair, taking my own zigzag path between the stands.
“When did you get here?” I asked, after a few beats of silence. Mostly because I was desperate for something to say. He was looking around, expressionless, taking in the sights. Carnivals are creepy after hours, and dark carnivals are doubly creepy. Shadows drifted eerily between the tents.
“A couple hours ago,” he said. The last customers, girls in tank tops and boys in shorts, were filing out of the gates. The grass was littered with empty popcorn boxes, napkins, and ice cream cones, though it would all be cleaned up by morning. “So do the people coming here think it’s make-believe? Or real?”
“They think what they think.” I shrugged. “Do they think they’re really drinking blood and seeing vampires and watching Strombo get eaten by a lion? They have to not believe it, or it’d be too scary.”
“So is it dangerous? Do people get killed?”
“Of course not!” I was mortally offended. “My dad always said it takes a lot of magic to make something real look fake in the right way.”
Lucas shook his head, his dark hair falling in his face. “I don’t get it.”
“Well, if you don’t like ghost brides or the sinister sounds of giggling children, there’s always the Tunnel of Love.” I pointed toward its sparkling entrance, a dot of bright pink in a sea of dark.
He smiled. It changed his whole face. My heart bumped. “What’s the story there?”
“They drizzle love potion through the air,” I said, as we paused at the Snack Shack. I unlocked the little gate that blocked off the space behind the counter and went in. “Not too much. Just enough to make you feel affectionate.”
I fished around in the big steel refrigerator until I found what I was looking for—a red slushie, premade—and fitted a lid onto it.