Page 39 of Chaos Carnival (Cirque de Sanguine #2)
Chapter 38: Fortune's Vigil
Maverick
“Ladies and gentlemen!” My voice resonated through the big top, carrying power that made humans' souls lean toward oblivion. “Prepare yourselves for wonders that will make you question everything!”
The crowd's fear was perfect—not the jagged, unwilling terror that Ivan had ripped from victims, but something artfully cultivated. They wanted to be afraid. Needed it.
But something felt wrong. The mate bond stretched like a wire about to snap, making my chest ache with familiar dread. Tess had warned me this would happen, had seen it coming. I'd been foolish to hope that she'd been wrong, just this once.
“I give you...” I paused for dramatic effect, knowing the moment required theatricality, even as anxiety clawed at my chest. “The Sisters of Shadow!”
The big top plunged into total blackout, pulling screams from the audience. Two figures descended in a rain of silver dust, their Victorian-era costumes a throwback to when they'd made their pact with Lilith in 1889. Their bodies moved with impossible grace, bones seeming to bend and reform as they spiraled downward. Lilith's magic wrapped around them like living ink, creating shapes that human minds couldn't quite process—wings that weren't wings, faces that weren't faces, beauty that hurt to look at.
The Sisters twisted around each other until it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. The darkness responded to their movement, stretching and warping to create scenes of ancient battles, lovers' embraces, deaths and rebirths. The crowd's fear took on a sharp edge of awe as human minds struggled to rationalize what they were seeing.
As they reached their finale, a move that shocked and awed, I slipped away. The mate bond's warning had become impossible to ignore. Something was happening.
The fairgrounds radiated with harmonized energy as I strode toward her tent, acknowledging the various performers who'd joined our little carnival of wonders. But the moment I pushed aside the heavy purple curtain, I knew.
The tent was empty of everything except magic.
Her tarot cards formed a perfect spiral on the table, each one placed with deliberate precision. Candles burned with unnatural flames, their light creating dark fingers that seemed to point toward something indefinite.
“Monstre?” I called, though I knew she'd seen this moment coming. Had probably arranged it herself.
The mate bond pulled at my chest like a fishhook, telling me she was beyond my reach. Again.
“Oscar, where is she?” I snatched up the crystal skull from its velvet cushion, my fingers tight around the smooth surface.
“My dear boy, do calm yourself. The dramatics are hardly necessary.” Oscar's cultured voice dripped with his usual sardonic wit.
“Cut the shit.” The skull's eye sockets glowed with faint amusement. “Did she tell you where she was going?”
“Ah, that would be a rather firm 'no.' Our dear Tess has become quite adept at keeping her own counsel these days.”
I fought the urge to hurl the skull across the tent. “You're supposed to watch her!”
“I'm a disembodied consciousness trapped in crystal, darling. I observe. I comment. I occasionally offer wickedly astute observations. I do not, however, possess the ability to physically restrain anyone from their chosen course of action.”
The mate bond pulled sharper, making me wince. “Fuck.”
“Such eloquence. I can see why she's so taken with you.” Oscar's tone softened. “She knows what she's doing, Maverick. She always has.”
“That's what scares me.” I set the skull back down with more care than I felt. The bond stretched thinner, telling me she was getting further away.
The cards on the table told a story I didn't want to read, especially the one placed at the spiral's center with mathematical precision.
The Tower. And beneath it, a raven's feather.
My shadows writhed with helpless rage as I lifted the feather. It was massive, primordial. No modern bird had feathers like this. It hummed with vitality that spoke of ages past, of arcana older than seraphim or demons.
A scream pierced the night. Not the carefully cultivated fear we harvested, but raw terror that tasted like metal and destiny. The sound pulled at me even as I recognized it as part of whatever game Tess was playing with fate.
Every instinct screamed to tear the world apart looking for her. But I straightened my coat, arranged my features into the practiced smile of a showman, and prepared to perform the hardest act of my existence—pretending I didn't know my mate had stalked into the night without me.
The big top's atmosphere hit me like a wave of chaos. The Sisters of Shadow hung suspended in mid-descent, their bodies creating impossible geometries as Lilith's magic turned them into living nightmares. Blackness writhed around them, forming scenes from humanity's collective unconscious. The crowd's terror had an edge of ecstasy to it, their minds trying to accommodate wonders they couldn’t possibly comprehend.
I strode into the spotlight, each step precise and measured. The audience's energy crashed over me – their fear and awe, a feast I couldn't stomach now, not knowing Tess was out there, facing some unknown dark prophecy.
“Exquisite, aren't they?” I projected my voice to the highest seats, where even the void seemed to dance. “A testament to the darkness that lies within us all.”
The crowd's nervous laughter followed my script. I smiled, all teeth and ancient hunger, while my eyes scanned the tent for any sign of Stone or Lux. For any hint that this was all going to be okay. Nothing.
“Now, for a change of pace,” I continued, my voice a hypnotic purr that made human minds fuzzy. “A tale of danger, daring, and perhaps a touch of death! Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the Razor's Edge!”
As the knife throwers took their positions, I caught Lux's eye. He leaned on a support beam, his posture too casual, his gaze sharp with shared concern. A subtle gesture sent him melting into shadows to find Stone.
The show continued, each act flowing into the next like blood from a wound. I played my part—the charming ringmaster, the master of ceremonies, the curator of nightmares. I made them laugh, gasp, and scream in carefully measured doses. All while knowing that somewhere out there, my mate was facing real horrors without me.
Between acts, I cornered Gregor, our fire-breather. “Have you seen Tess?” I kept my voice low, though even whispered commands made his pupils dilate.
“Not since set-up, sir.” He wiped soot from his face. “Is she okay?”
“Everything's fine,” I lied, the words tasting like copper. I moved through our performers—the contortionist whose spine could bend like water, the strongman who'd traded his soul for one last kiss. One by one, they gave me variations of the same answer. They'd seen her, but she hadn't been quite real, like a projection of something else.
As the knife throwers finished their act, euphoric laughter rippled through the crowd. They thought the floating blades and impossible accuracy were clever tricks, no idea their entertainment was powered by their own processed terror.
“And now, dear guests,” I commanded their attention with supernatural ease, “a performance so primal, it will awaken the ancient fire in your blood!” My voice carried influence that made their minds wonder. “I give you—Inferno!”
Gregor lumbered onto stage, flames already dancing between his fingers like living things. I slipped into the night where Lux waited, his presence still as death.
“Stone's working on it,” he murmured. “The wards are intact, but there's something else. Old magic. The kind that predates us.”
I nodded, though the implications chilled me. Tess's absence was a wound I couldn’t ignore, the mate bond stretched too far.
Gregor's flames painted the tent in shades of gold and crimson, drawing gasps from the crowd as he performed feats that would have killed a normal human. The audience never suspected his immortal soul was the price of their entertainment.
“Keep looking,” I told Lux, danger bleeding into my voice.
Lux nodded and melted away. I returned to the stage's edge, my showman's smile a mask for the ancient monster stirring beneath my skin.
The big top emptied like a slow drain, humans drunk on macabre forces. Their lingering fear, usually a feast for beings like us, now tasted like prophecy and endings. I stood in the center ring, energy coiling around me like black cats, watching for the air to shimmer or bend.
“Quite a show,” Lilith materialized beside me, wine glass filled with something darker than mere alcohol. “Though your mate's absence rather spoiled the symmetry.” Her smirk held ancient knowledge and newer warnings.
“Not now,” I snarled, the mate bond a constant reminder that Tess was somewhere else. My shadows writhed, darkness incarnate responding to the truth in her words. “If they've hurt her—“
“Oh, darling,” Lilith's laugh held centuries of secrets. “They can't hurt her anymore. She's become something they can’t comprehend.” She paused, red lips curving into a smile.
I turned on her, letting my control slip enough to let out a growl I knew wouldn’t intimidate her. “Either help me find her or get out of my way.”
“Always so linear.” She sighed. “She doesn't need finding.”
Inside our tent, surrounded by tokens of alchemy and protection, I paced like a caged beast. Stone sat unnaturally still, his demon-bound goat pressing against him as both their forces responded to the wrongness in the air. Lux hadn't stopped moving, his essence crackling with frustration, while Addie perched nearby, sensing things she couldn't yet understand. The mate bond pulled at me like a cosmic string, my chest a cold dearth. She was too far away.
“The wards held,” Stone reported, each word carved from centuries of experience. Eris bleated, her supernatural awareness pricked. “Nothing broke in—but something opened.”
My shadows lashed out, making the lantern flames stutter. “We've checked every ward, questioned every performer, searched every crevice in this place.” Each word tasted like ash and inevitability.
“She won’t stay away forever,” Addie insisted. “She promised.”
I started to respond, but the air abruptly grew dense, pregnant with possibility. A whisper brushed my consciousness, familiar yet different—Tess's voice.