Carniepunk: Parlor Tricks (Elemental Assassin) Read online

  Esmeralda turned to glare at him with cold eyes. “And so are you, for even daring to question me. So shut your mouth and lock the door. It’s time to get started. We need to be gone from here in the morning.”

  Arturo stabbed his index finger at Elizabeth, who hadn’t stirred since letting out that one moan. “And what about her? I thought you were going to drain her the rest of the way tonight.”

  Esmeralda shrugged. “Not now, not when I have such a fine specimen here. Crack her skull open and dump her body in some cave in the woods like you usually do. I don’t care—just make sure that she disappears. At least long enough for us to get out of town.”

  Drain her? What were they talking about? Esmeralda was an elemental, not a vampire.

  I got my answer a second later when Esmeralda crawled into the clown car right next to Bria. She spent a few minutes fussing, moving first one way, then the other, as though she needed to be as comfortable as possible for whatever foul thing she was planning. Finally, Esmeralda took Bria’s hand, and her hazel eyes began to glow with her Air magic.

  And I watched while she took my sister’s life and made it her own.

  The rosy, healthy flush in Bria’s cheeks slowly faded away, replaced by a dull, sickly pallor, and her face started to take on the same gaunt look that Elizabeth’s had. Esmeralda sighed with contentment, and I realized that her skin was growing brighter, warmer, almost as if she was taking the glow from Bria’s cheeks and putting it into her own.

  My eyes narrowed. That’s exactly what she was doing. My friend Jolene “Jo-Jo” Deveraux was an Air elemental, one who used her magic to heal folks. Jo-Jo grabbed hold of oxygen and all the other natural gases in the air and used those molecules to clean wounds, restore vitality, and put ripped skin back together. Esmeralda had the same sort of power, only she was using her Air magic and all those molecules to pull Bria’s health and well-being into her own body. Draining the life out of my sister like a vampire sucking someone dry of blood, until there would be nothing left of her and she would die.

  I wondered how many girls she’d done this to over the years. The carnival was the perfect cover for something like this. No doubt Esmeralda had Arturo snatch up a girl or two at every town the carnival visited, drained them, disposed of their bodies, then packed up and moved on before anyone realized exactly what had happened. A nice little murderous scheme.

  Well, it was going to stop—right now.

  Arturo was busy watching Esmeralda, so he didn’t see me wrap my hands around two of the wooden bars on my cage. Forget the lockpicks, and fuck being subtle. Not with these monsters. I reached for my Ice magic, letting the cool power bubble up from the deepest part of me. Cold silver lights flared, centered on the spider rune scars embedded in my palms, and I pushed the power outward. It took me only a second to completely coat the bars with an inch of elemental Ice, pushing it into all of the tiny holes and cracks in the wood.

  Esmeralda must have sensed me using my magic, because her head turned in my direction. She realized that I was awake and trying to break free. She snapped her fingers at Arturo.

  “Get her!” she hissed, tightening her grip on Bria’s hand.

  “Don’t worry,” I snarled. “I’m coming out.”

  I sent out a burst of magic, shattering the elemental Ice that had been driven deep into the wood. My cage bars snapped like matchsticks under my fingers.

  Arturo hurried over to the cage, but I was quicker. I crawled out and stayed on the ground, waiting until he was in range. Then I lashed out with my foot, catching the giant in the knee. His leg buckled and he put a hand on the ground to keep from falling flat on his face. He staggered upright, and I got to my feet and darted forward so that I stood right in front of him.

  Then, looking him in the eye, I grabbed one of the knives out of his leather sash and stabbed him in the chest with it.

  He screamed. I smiled and twisted the knife in deeper, just as I had a hundred times before as the Spider. Blood spurted from the wound, spattering onto my hand, face, and clothes, but I didn’t care. The giant would be bleeding a hell of a lot more before I was through with him—and so would his sick, twisted bitch of a boss.

  Arturo screamed again and swung his fist at me. This time I reached for my Stone magic and used it to harden my skin into an impenetrable shell. The giant’s fist plowed into my chin. The sharp, strong blow didn’t break any of my bones, thanks to my magic, but there was still enough force behind Arturo’s punch to throw me off him.

  I slammed into the dancing bear’s ball and bounced off it, but as soon as I hit the floor, I scrambled right back up onto my feet, still clutching his knife. Arturo and I faced each other, about twenty feet of empty space between us. Apparently, the giant thought this was going to be a repeat performance of what he’d done onstage earlier. He reached for the knives in his sash and started throwing them at me—only this time he wasn’t looking to miss. No, this time, he aimed for my heart.

  Thunk!

  Thunk! Thunk!

  Thunk!

  Since I was still holding on to my Stone power, I didn’t bother ducking Arturo’s knives. The blades bounced harmlessly off my magic-hardened skin and clattered to the barn floor, tumbling every which way. Instead, I ran toward him even as he backed up. But he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and he bumped up against another one of the clown cars. Arturo’s arms windmilled and he ended up with his ass in the bottom of the car and his long legs dangling over the side. He raised his hands, trying to fend me off, but I smashed my Stone-hardened fist into his face, snapping his head back.

  “Catch this between your teeth,” I growled.

  Then I rammed his own knife into the bastard’s throat.

  Arturo arched back, clawing at the blade in his windpipe, so I obliged him by ripping it out. Blood sprayed everywhere, as bright, thick, and runny as the greasepaint the clowns wore. Wheezing all the while, the giant clutched his throat with both hands, as if that would save him from the brutal, fatal wound. But after several seconds, his hands slipped off his bloody throat and his dark eyes grew blank and glassy—

  A blast of Air magic threw me across the barn.

  It was like being picked up and hurled by a tornado, but I managed to hold on to my Stone power as I smacked into the far wall. The tools there rattled from the sudden violent disruption, but they stayed on their pegs. Another gust of wind picked me up and tossed me against the wall again before turning me around and holding me there, two feet off the ground.

  I glared at Esmeralda, who climbed out of the clown car and slowly approached me, one hand held out in front of her to help her control the gusts of Air swirling around me. The ringmaster’s eyes glowed a bright hazel as she used her magic to keep me right where she wanted me.

  “I’ll kill you for daring to interfere with Esmeralda the Amazing!” she bellowed.

  “Oh, don’t make promises you can’t keep, sugar,” I drawled.

  I pushed back against her magic with my own Ice and Stone power, raised my arm, and chucked the knife I was still holding at her.

  Esmeralda shrieked, threw her hands up, and sent out a haphazard burst of Air magic. The sharp gust of wind knocked the knife off course, and the weapon sailed harmlessly off to the left. But my toss had ruined her concentration, and the feel of her Air magic quickly died down to a mere whisper of a breeze. I slid down the wall onto my feet, then grabbed another one of Arturo’s knives from where it had landed on the floor and headed in her direction.

  But the bitch recovered fast. She tossed another blast of Air magic my way, forcing me back while she sprinted for the barn door. I started after her, but my feet got tangled up in a pile of oversize clown boots. Cursing, I broke free of the mess even though I knew I wasn’t going to be quick enough to catch her before she ran outside—

  Click.

  Esmeralda knew that sound as well as I di
d. She froze, then slowly turned around. Bria had one hand braced on the side of the clown car to hold herself upright. With her other hand, she pointed her gun at the ringmaster’s chest.

  Sometime during the fight, my sister had woken up, climbed out of the clown car, and stumbled over to the table where her gun was. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy of Esmeralda not to have put the weapon somewhere more secure. Then again, she hadn’t planned on Bria ever waking up to use it.

  Bria leveled the gun at the ringmaster’s heart. “Needless to say, you are under arrest,” she growled.

  Esmeralda stayed where she was, although I could see her trying to think of a way to escape. I moved over to stand beside my sister, careful not to get in her line of fire.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Bria nodded. “Other than feeling completely exhausted, I’m fine. What did she do to me?”

  “The same thing she did to Elizabeth and I’m guessing a lot of other girls,” I said. “She was using her Air magic to pull the life out of you.”

  Esmeralda laughed, the ugly sound bouncing around inside the barn. “Not the life, you idiot. The beauty.”

  “And what would you need with my beauty?” Bria asked. “You have plenty of your own.”

  Esmeralda let out another laugh, then gestured at her own face and body. “Please. You have no idea how long and hard I’ve worked to look this way. The diets, the face creams, the makeup. And when I was finally perfect, do you know what happened?”

  Neither Bria nor I answered her, but we didn’t have to.

  “Old age,” Esmeralda hissed, as though it were the vilest thing ever. “Gray hair, wrinkles, sagging skin. Nobody wants to see that. Nobody pays to see the old crone at the carnival. They all want to stare at the pretty young woman in the center of the ring. But I figured out a way to stop it—to stop all of it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And all you had to do was kill a bunch of innocent girls.”

  Esmeralda shrugged. “Youth is wasted on the young—and so is beauty. If they weren’t strong enough to keep theirs, then that was their fault—not mine.”

  “Well, it’s over,” Bria said. “You’re going to jail, where you belong. I wonder how long it will take for all that stolen beauty of yours to fade. What do you think, Gin? Six months?”

  “Nah,” I said. “Not with all that magic she wasted trying to kill me. I’d give her a month, two tops, before she looks her real age, whatever that is. It won’t be pretty, though, will it, Esmeralda? Sad, since we know that’s all you really care about.”

  Panic filled the ringmaster’s eyes, and her gaze darted left and right, but there was no way out and nowhere for her to run. The witch had finally been caught, and soon everyone would see her exactly as she was—warts, wrinkles, and all.

  “I’d rather die!” she screamed.

  Esmeralda reached for her Air magic to throw at us. I tightened my grip on the knife in my hand and headed toward her, determined to end the ringmaster once and for all—

  Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Bria shot her in the chest three times.

  Esmeralda’s eyes bulged in pain and surprise. Her mouth opened wide, as though she were going to scream, but the only sound that escaped her lips was a soft rasp, like the air leaking out of a balloon. She toppled over onto the floor, blood soaking into the hay around her.

  I waited until my ears quit ringing, then looked at my sister. “What did you do that for? I would have taken care of her.”

  “I know,” Bria said in a grim voice. “But who knew what else she might have tried to do to you with her Air magic? She might have tried to suffocate you with it or something worse. I didn’t want to take that chance, and I especially didn’t want her to hurt you like she hurt me—like she hurt all those other girls.”

  I nodded. Bria protecting me, caring about me, fighting side by side with me, was something that I was still getting used to, after her being gone for so many years. But keeping your family safe no matter what was a need I understood all too well. Sometimes I thought it was the only thing I understood. Well, that and retribution. And sometimes they were one and the same.

  Bria grabbed her badge off the table while I tucked my knives away in their usual slots. Then we both walked over to look at the ringmaster—at least, what was left of her. Death had snuffed out the magic that had sustained Esmeralda, and her body was already starting to deteriorate. Wrinkles grooved her once-smooth skin, gray streaked her hair, and her perfect bloodred nails had come free from her gnarled, knotted fingers. She looked like she’d been dead for months instead of just a few minutes.

  “How old do you think she was?” Bria asked.

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t much matter now, does it? Because she’s as dead as can be.”

  While Bria pulled her cell phone out of her jeans and called her fellow boys in blue to report what had happened, I went over to the clown car where Elizabeth was lying.

  I put my hand on her forehead. She was cool to the touch, but she was still alive. Jo-Jo could take care of the rest. Elizabeth jerked awake at the feel of my hand on her skin, her eyes wide with panic and fear. I gently squeezed her shoulder, letting her know that everything was all right. After a moment, when she realized that it wasn’t Esmeralda looming over her, her face relaxed.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” I said in a gentle voice. “You’re safe now.”

  Elizabeth nodded, and her eyes slid shut in exhaustion once more. “I used to like the carnival,” she muttered. “Not anymore.”

  I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. “I know the feeling.”

  BRIA AND I were at the carnival late into the night. In addition to calling the cops, Bria also dialed Fran, the girl’s aunt. I watched as Fran got out of her car, ran over to where Elizabeth was resting in the back of Bria’s sedan, and hugged her niece tight. Jo-Jo would be here in a few minutes to fully heal her, and the girl would be as pretty and right as rain again soon enough.

  Bria said something to them, then headed in my direction. I was sitting on top of the picket fence that lined the clearing, and she hopped up next to me.

  “Elizabeth should be fine in a few days,” she said. “It looks like Esmeralda didn’t do any lasting damage. I talked to Jo-Jo on the phone. She said that since Esmeralda didn’t fully drain Elizabeth, it’s sort of like Elizabeth is suffering from severe dehydration. Some Air magic and a lot of fluids, and she’ll be okay.”

  I nodded. “Good.”

  “I also called Finn and asked him to do some research into the carnival,” Bria said. “He found an old newspaper article from the early 1800s that talked about a traveling Carnival of Wondrous Wonders. The main attraction was a knife-throwing act that featured a particularly beautiful woman.”

  “Esmeralda the Amazing.”

  She nodded. “There’s no telling how many people she murdered over the centuries to keep herself young. Dozens, maybe even hundreds. We’ve already started contacting law enforcement agencies in other towns where the carnival passed through so we can look into all of the missing-persons reports.”

  I figured it would turn out to be something like that. “What about the other carnival workers? Were they all involved in it?”

  Bria shook her head. “Apparently, Arturo was the only one who actually helped her abduct and kill the girls. The other workers were never allowed into that barn they set up at every carnival site, so they never actually saw what Esmeralda did to the girls. The workers were suspicious, but mostly they were too afraid of Esmeralda to really look into it. I need to get back and finish interviewing them. It shouldn’t take too much longer.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” I said.

  Bria nodded, hopped off the fence, and moved back into the crowd of cops. The carnival workers also milled around, looking shell-shocked. I wondered what would happen to the carnival now—if it would continue on or if the work
ers would have to find another one to join. I had a feeling that the wondrous wonders would be no more, just like Esmeralda and Arturo.

  Since Bria was busy, I left my perch on the fence and wandered back through the carnival. Finally, I wound up at the main stage. I climbed the steps and looked out at the bleachers. They were empty now, but I could almost hear the roar of the crowd, feel the heat of the spotlight, see everyone’s eager eyes fixed on me. Esmeralda had loved this so much that she’d murdered for it. Well, I supposed people have murdered for less—including me.

  I was about to leave the stage when I noticed a tin pail of apples sitting next to the Wheel of Death. I looked around, but no one was in sight, so I walked over and grabbed an apple. I skewered the fruit on a piece of plywood that had splintered on the wheel—right where Esmeralda’s heart would have been, if she had been on the contraption. When I was satisfied the apple would stay in place, I cranked up the Wheel of Death until it was spinning around and around at a dizzying pace. Then I walked to the opposite side of the stage, several feet behind where Arturo had stood.

  I palmed one of my silverstone knives. I hefted it in my hand a moment, then tossed it up, caught it by the blade, and threw it at the spinning wheel.

  Thunk!

  The apple exploded into pieces.

  Ta-da.

  I grinned. The wheel slowed down, and I went over and pulled my knife out of the plywood. I flipped the blade up into the air before catching it with ease and giving a low bow to the empty bleachers.

  “This old girl’s still got it,” I murmured, straightening back up. “Parlor tricks and all.”

  Whistling, I slid my knife back up my sleeve and left the Wheel of Death and the stage behind.

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