Lucas watched me with his eyebrows drawn together. “Are you thirsty?”
“Not exactly.”
“Didn’t get to finish your previous slushie because it ended up all over my face?”
“You were talking crap about the carnival.” I headed back out into the night. “No one talks crap about the carnival. Also, the last time we met, you threw up on me, so we’re even.”
“I threw up out of nerves,” Lucas said. “I was a nervous child.”
We passed by the Mysterious and Macabre Museum of Mirrors. When I was a kid, it had been my favorite attraction, with its many corridors lined with shining reflective surfaces leading to a massive central square of huge mirrors that showed you tall and short, doubled and cut in half, old and young. Now I tried not to focus on any of them if I had to go in there. Their silvery faces could surprise you, and not in a good way.
“What were you nervous about?” I asked. The merry-go-round loomed up under the moon. The horses were snarling, rearing, terrified. The rounding boards and central cylinder were painted with a pattern of screaming faces.
It was a good place to come and be alone and think.
Lucas looked incredulous. “The terrifying demon your dad was shoving me in front of?”
I laughed. “That was Mephit. I thought you said he was pathetic.”
Lucas’s incredulity only grew. “Mephit’s your carnival demon?”
So Lucas knew more than I thought. The real truth is, every dark carnival has a familiar. A demon. A real one is the heart of a carnival, powering its darkness, infusing attractions with a sense of menace and the customers with jumpy nerves.
“That’s right.” I hopped onto the carousel and wove between the horses to get to the central cylinder. It glittered with light when the carnival was open, but it was dark now. I knocked on a central panel and it popped open, revealing a descending staircase. I was halfway inside when I turned around to look at Lucas. “You coming?”
He shrugged a resigned shrug and followed me in.
The staircase led to a hastily dug area, lit with a couple generator-powered lamps. It was hot down here, even on the ledge. The pit underneath the ledge was hotter still.
“Mephit!” I called. “Mephit, dinnertime!”
Lucas looked horrified, though to his credit, he stood his ground. “You’re going to feed me to the demon?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, as Mephit uncurled from the depths.
It’s hard to describe a demon—they all look different, and they all look like nothing else on earth. Mephit most closely resembled a giant hairless cat with huge blue eyes and triangular ears. If, you know, a hairless cat had a snout full of fangs and black bat’s wings and a long, scaly tail that slapped the ground impatiently. I held out the red slushie. Unlike the others sold in the Snack Shack, this one really was made with blood. Cow blood, but Mephit didn’t mind. As long as it was cold, he liked it fine. His tongue shot out like a frog’s and nabbed the cup from my hand. He swallowed it in one gulp, crunching the bloody ice between his teeth, and grinned.
“Whoa,” Lucas said, as I scratched Mephit between the ears. He felt like warm rubber. Mephit had been around long enough that he’d developed a fondness for humanity. Lucas edged closer. “Can I … pet him?”
“Sure,” I said, surprised. I backed away, and Lucas approached Mephit, rubbing him gently on the nose and between the ears. A purr rose up like the sound of a rusty motor. Blazing sex appeal and Mephit liked him? I was in trouble.
* * *
We were late to Uncle Walter’s big speech in the main tent, and I could feel his glare as Lucas and I arrived. The carnival staff sat in the bleachers, looking grim. Otto winked at me, but I could tell he was in a bad mood. The clowns were holding each other and crying. Strombo was crouched on the floor with Throckmorton. Ariadne glanced over at us and gave Lucas an appraising look.
Walter stood before an enormous square that was covered in a velvet drape. “And so,” he was saying, “this is the beginning of a brand-new day for Walter’s Darke Carnival of the Unnatural, Unreal, Frightful, and Grotesque.”
Reggie raised his hand.
“Yes, my good man?” Walter asked. I was beginning to suspect that he called everyone that to avoid remembering their names.
“That’s great and all,” Reggie said hesitantly, “but how will we get that much power? I mean, you’re talking big stuff, really evil stuff. It’s out of our league, you know? You’d need the demon equivalent of a ten-ton generator.”
Walter smirked. “Fortunately, we have just that.” He whipped the cover off the cage. It was a real carny gesture, I’ll give him that. “Meet Azatoth!”
Lucas put his hands on my shoulders as if he was worried I would scream. I didn’t, though his hands felt nice and warm.
The thing in the cage wasn’t that huge, but it was sleek and slippery and sharklike in a subtle, unpleasant way. Unlike most demons, it didn’t have claws or stingers or anything like that, just featureless steely-gray skin and a body that ended in a head that was all mouth. The teeth looked like they’d been found in a dozen different places. Jagged teeth, pointed teeth, teeth like ice picks, teeth made out of broken glass. Its eyes were black and dead as pits on the moon. They made me feel dizzy. Dizzy and a little sick.
Otto stood up. “No.”
Walter gave him a dark look. “What do you mean, no?”
“That’s a Keres demon.” Otto picked up his jacket, slung it on. “No good ever comes from running a carnival on that kind of energy. There’s dark, and then there’s evil, and they ain’t the same.”
I thought of my dad. But the price you pay for that kind of evil, Lulubee … that’s a high one.
Walter’s face soured. “Does anyone else feel that way? Because you’re quite welcome to follow Mr.—”
“Otto,” Otto said.
“Mr. Otto right out that door,” he said. “Just don’t expect to ever come back.” There was something slippery and cold in his voice. As if he’d learned to talk just like his demon looked.
A few people scrambled to their feet. Ariadne rolled her chair out, her head held high. Strombo followed Otto, carrying Throckmorton. Overall, though, it was fewer people than I would have thought. Most everyone stayed put. Curious, maybe—or maybe, like me, they didn’t have anywhere else to go.
* * *
Lucas walked me back to my trailer. The rest of the staff shambled off to their own trailers and tents, looking like zombies.
As we crossed the midway, I saw Walter in the distance, leading Azatoth on a long, black metal leash that shimmered in the moonlight. He ushered him toward the structure I’d noticed earlier, the weird brushed-metal dome near his trailer that gleamed like a spaceship.
“Where did your dad get Azatoth?” I asked.
“Not my dad,” Lucas said. “My stepdad.” There wasn’t any hostility in it, though; he just sounded sad. “I don’t know. After my mom died, he was restless. He drove around a lot, disappearing at night. I thought maybe he was depressed. Then he came home with Azatoth. Said he wanted to get back into the carnival business. It was the first time he looked happy since she died.”
“Was that before my dad left?” I asked.
He nodded. “Walter was looking forward to setting up his own show, but when he heard about your dad, he said we should come back here, make sure you were okay. He said he’d always loved this place.”
I knew I ought to feel grateful. But I couldn’t. Everything was changing, and not in ways I wanted it to change. “I’m sorry about your mom. My dad, he’s still alive but—I know what it feels like to lose someone.” I swallowed, and the next words spilled out of me. “Having somebody leave you like that on purpose, you end up asking yourself what you did. To make them go.”