Almost immediately, there was a shrill fanfare of trumpets, and the curtains at the back of the stage were drawn back. The audience clapped and whistled and whooped with excitement as the ringmaster came striding out in his bottle-green tailcoat, cracking his whip.
‘Ladies and gentlemen and those who cannot decide which they want to be! Welcome, welcome, welcome to Albrecht’s Traveling Circus and Freak Show! Today is the most momentous day that this circus has ever known! Today is the day that we make our ninth and last sacrifice to Brother Albrecht, and return this circus at last to the world where it rightly belongs!
He spun around on the heel of his black polished jackboot and cracked his whip again. ‘I give you! Albrecht’s Traveling Circus and Freak Show!’
The audience rose to their feet, roaring with excitement, as the stage was flooded with scores of clowns and freaks. Dom Magator saw Jekkalon and Jemexxa’s mother, the Demi-Goddess, being wheeled to one side. To his horror, he also saw Maria Fortales, Brother Albrecht’s eighth sacrifice. Her face looked more like a Mayan death-mask than a human face, with empty eyes. The operation on her arms had been completed by another surgeon, and now she had two huge cross-bred pythons writhing from her shoulders. Their jaws had been wired together to prevent them from biting anybody while they were on stage.
Once the throng of clowns and freaks had filled the stage, a gurney was wheeled out, and brought right to the very edge of the stage. Pinned to the gurney with leather straps was Walter Wisocky, dressed in nothing but a filthy white T-shirt. His face was swollen and his hair was sticking up and he looked as if he were only half conscious. Between his thighs there was nothing but a blood-crusted surgical dressing.
‘Jesus,’ said Dom Magator. ‘Do you know who that is? Rhodajane — can you see who it is? It’s that detective who gave me a hard time when I first took you into the Griffin House Hotel. Windsock, or whatever his name was.’
‘That’s probably what Mago Verde meant when he said that he’d mistaken your identity,’ said Xyrena. ‘He must have caught him by mistake, thinking he was you. What did I call you two? Tweedleydum and Tweedleydee.’
‘Jesus.’
But now the ringmaster cracked his whip yet again, and shouted, ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Furr-eaks and misfits! I give you… the Grand Freak himself, for the very last time in the world of dreams, Brother Albrecht!’
Accompanied by another fanfare of trumpets, Brother Albrecht’s black-canopied contraption was pushed on to the stage by his naked, tattooed entourage. The ringmaster wound the handle, and the canopy gradually opened up, revealing Brother Albrecht. His hair was tangled with fresh yellow flowers from the wheat fields around the circus site, and he was smiling in triumph.
He nodded to acknowledge the clapping and the cheering of the crowd. ‘And now,’ he announced. ‘The ninth sacrifice! Opfer nummer neun!’
Walter moaned and struggled against his restraints, but it looked to Dom Magator as if he were either sedated or in shock. He hoped for his sake that he was sedated, and heavily. God alone knew what Brother Albrecht and his assembly of freaks were planning to do to him next.
‘Now we can say goodbye to eight centuries of enforced exile!’ Brother Albrecht cried out. ‘Now we can exact our recompense for being treated as outcasts and inferiors! Es ist Zeit für unsere Rache!’
From the rear of the stage, a man with spiky straw-colored hair appeared, wearing a long green surgeon’s robe. He was carrying a wire cage, holding it up high so that everybody in the audience could see what was inside it.
‘Oh my God,’ said Xyrena.
Leaping and jumping inside the cage was a thin black river otter, with white markings on its face. The crowd roared again, and whistled, and applauded, and the otter went into a frenzy, hurling itself from one side of the cage to the other.
‘What the hell they plannin’ to use that for?’ asked Zebenjo’Yyx. ‘Dom Magator — we should never of given up our weapons — we gotta stop them!’
The ringmaster led the man in the surgeon’s robe up to the front of the stage. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! Nondescripts! You are about to witness the conversion of our ninth sacrifice to a willing sacrifice! A freak who will agree to stay with us for ever! I give you Doctor Norman Agnew, and in turn Doctor Norman Agnew will give you Detective Walter Wisocky, Otter Lover!’
Doctor Agnew gave a gap-toothed grin, and unfastened the wire latch on the cage. He reached inside and lifted out the struggling otter, raising it up over his head. The crowd went wild, drumming their feet on the floor and standing on their seats and waving their arms.
‘Otter Lover—’ said Xyrena. ‘My God, I know what they’re going to do! That poor man!’ Without any hesitation, she stood up and walked around An-Gryferai’s chair and across to the center of the stage.
Dom Magator said, ‘Xyrena—!’ but she ignored him. She went right up close to Doctor Agnew and stood beside him, until he realized that she was there. Very slowly, he lowered the wriggling otter and stared at her.
‘Yes, madam?’ he asked her. ‘And what do you want?’
Xyrena smiled at him. ‘More to the point, doctor, what do you want?’
Doctor Agnew continued to stare at her. He didn’t say anything, but it was obvious that he was breathing more deeply. He licked his lips, and then he looked toward the black contraption where Brother Albrecht was ensconced, as if he were guilty about feeling so aroused.
In his grip, even the otter began to rise up stiffly, as if it were a huge sleek member covered with shiny black fur.
Brother Albrecht called out, ‘You again, Xyrena, you Lorelei! We didn’t finish our conversation the last time, did we, when you and your friends caused such havoc?’
‘So sorry about that,’ said Xyrena. She reached out and stroked the otter all the way down its back and Doctor Agnew shuddered as if she had stroked his penis. Then she walked over to Brother Albrecht’s contraption and said, ‘Congratulations are in order, then, your Grand Freakiness? Your ninth sacrifice, all ready to be converted into a sideshow attraction? What’s so special about a girl with snakes for arms, when you have a man with a living otter for a membrum virile?’
Brother Albrecht said, ‘Come closer. How is it you make me feel like this, Xyrena?’
‘Just my personality, I guess.’
‘No… you have much more than that. You have a power which I recognize. You remind me so much of the woman for whom I lost everything. Your eyes. Your hair.’
Between his truncated, tattooed thighs, his brown leather jerkin was swelling up. Xyrena reached her hand over the edge of his seat and almost touched him with her fingertips. Even though she didn’t quite make contact, Brother Albrecht quivered, and closed his eyes, as if she had.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered. All around them, the circus folk on the stage were attentive and hushed, and even the assembled audience were much quieter, although they shuffled and coughed like any other audience.
‘You know my name,’ Xyrena told him.
He opened his eyes very wide. ‘Yes. But you look so much like my Lisbeth. How can that be possible?’
‘Coincidence,’ said Xyrena. ‘Fate. Or maybe you’ve forgotten what your Lisbeth really looks like. It’s been eight hundred years, after all. A body can forget a whole lot in eight hundred years.’
‘A body, yes,’ Brother Albrecht, with an unexpectedly wry smile. ‘A body without arms and legs.’
‘You have everything that counts,’ said Xyrena, her hand stroking up and down in the air, less than a half inch away from the contours of his bulging jerkin.