Page 41 of These Unhallowed Halls (Equinox Seasons Duet #2)

Twenty-Six- Come One, Come All, To The Big Top Show & See Every Trick Under The Sun

Lizzie

“T emps! Temps!” I shot Cerberus a glare, tears streaming down my face. “Fucking do something!”

He sank onto the floor next to us, the floor under Temps turning more and more red.

With his claws, he reached into Temps’ shirt, ripping the hole made by the knife larger.

The stab wound was grizzly, this slice through her warm tan skin, which was steadily losing color as she bled out.

I didn’t know what I expected him to do, but licking across it wasn’t it.

The swipe revealed more of the injury, and he grabbed my hand, getting me to push down on the area right above it.

“ There is no poison. That is good. ” Cerberus sucked in a breath at the wound, sniffing Temps’s blood. “ And no malignance. I will beseech my mothers. ”

“Your mother? What the fuck would she—No, it’s not important. Go.”

I watched as she shut his wolfen eyes, holding a clawed hand over Temps’s shoulder. Energy hummed around him, and that dark connection I’d noticed before—the way he seemed to be this creature of nature and death—swirled in the air.

Frantically looking around us, I made sure that no more surprises lurked in the shadows, doing what I could to keep the ball of light glowing in my palm.

I wasn’t the alchemist. I wasn’t the proper spellcaster.

I did things on instinct and intuition. But I knew those assholes didn’t like the light.

So, I went with what Temps had shown me.

Come on, baby. You can’t leave me.

The call in my blood toward her zinged, perking up as Cerberus began to growl our words that I couldn’t understand. Threads of gold appeared beneath his hands, and I watched them tighten, threatening to snap.

“ There is resistance. ”

“Well, I don’t give a shit! Get her stable!” I looked down at Temps. “Don’t you dare fucking leave me! Don’t you dare! I need you!”

The golden threads wavered in the air, vibrating like a tuning fork. Cerberus grabbed my hand, thrusting it between them. I could feel the ghostly heat rumbling over my skin, and I snapped my eyes up to his.

“Will you give to have her? Will you bind so that your fates are entwined permanently?”

A sharp chuckle bit out of me. “Aren’t they already? Temps is my life. I won’t lose her. I won’t have you lose her.”

Cerberus nodded, one of his eyes going blue as Caleb appeared at the surface, their voices speaking as one.

“ Agreed. ”

The chords of gold went taut around my skin, looping around our joined hands and squeezing down. They cut into our flesh as they sank deep, and a few drops of blood trickled down from both me and Cerberus. Even Caleb’s brighter red blood was there. It landed on Temps’ wound, seeping in.

Light emanated from our little group, and just beyond it, standing at the threshold with their hands joined, stood two women. One had light hair cascading down to the floor in a white dress, the other nude with long black braids trailing into eternity and horns perched on her.

“What in the holy fuck?”

More warmth blazed at my back, and I turned over my shoulder.

Two more women stood there. One had blazing red hair and antlers, this time, a black eye and a gold eye.

The other looked like it could have been Temps except for being so much paler.

Dark hair hung down, mingling with the fabric of her deep blue dress.

Four booming voices called out into the room. “It is done.”

At once, the entire room flashed white before going dark again, and I sat on the floor with Temps lying there, Cerberus receding some, so that it was this hybrid between him and Caleb.

“Temps,” I held her cheek, rubbing my thumb back and forth over her skin. “Temps, baby.”

“Temperance!” Caleb’s voice rang out. “You heard Lizzie. Get back here!”

He reached forward, his hand covering mine as he held her.

Zap! Electricity launched through us, this arch I could feel ring through my head to my toes and then back to Caleb and Temps.

My concentration on the light faded, and in the darkness, almost too dark to see, a faint glow emanated from Temps’ chest.

“Fuck!” She shot upright and into our waiting arms. “What the…Did I almost die?”

Nodding against her shoulder, I let my tears fall. “Yes. Yes, you fucking did. Don’t do that to me ever again.”

She chuckled, Caleb chuckled, and he squeezed both of us. “Promise.”

Creeeaaaakkkk…

We all looked to the shadows, bubbling laughter getting louder and louder. They were coming. This was far from over, and we still had to make it to the center. I had no doubt that the ring would be in the middle of all this. That’s where the “big show” was going to go down.

“We need to move.” Caleb stood up, offering his hands to both Temps and me, and only wearing his pants. “The door.”

“I see you got casual,” I smirked at him, forcing that ball of light into my palm again. “Looks good on ya.”

He snorted, rolling his eyes. “I’m just glad Cerberus left me with my pants this time.”

A loud pop sounded from the distance, followed by that sourceless laughter. It kept repeating from the shadows until I could see the edges of figures forming there, each one holding a fistful of balloons. They each popped one, the noise so fucking loud and bright.

“Time for the show, folks! Step on down! Try your luck!”

They stood just out of the direct light, swinging their various blades out in front of them.

Temps screamed as one slashed by her face, this long machete with polkadots painted on it.

Blood splattered over the blade and handle, I peered into the darkness to see a massive man, six feet at least, and so round that it almost looked fake.

“We need to go! The exit’s that way!” I pointed at the door, which seemed so fucking far now, and we all took off, the figures dogging us in the shadows beyond where my light reached.

“Come on! Try your hand! Come see The World’s Largest Man!” The machete streaked through the light, slicing Caleb’s arm as we ran past.

He growled, raking his claws through the air and catching on the fabric of that oversized man’s clown suit. We ran, heading toward the threshold that glowed red from the seams. But an enormous sledgehammer smashed down into the tiles in front of us, busting them into tiny shards.

I shifted my glow that way, Temps now able to conjure up her own light at our backs. My stomach dropped as I saw what stood in front of us.

Mangled limbs at wrong angles, all four of them, worked to hold the sledgehammer, two heads craning in our direction in a sharp jutting motion.

Only two legs held up the figure, all clad in those same dilapidated clown costumes, and the one backward hand gripped the sledgehammer toward me.

It hoisted it up into the air again, smiling at us, too wide and too many teeth.

“Come play! Test your feat of strength, puppies! We’ll even let’cha get the first swing before ol’ KitKat!”

“A conjoined twin?” Temps stumbled near me. “What the fuck? What’s—”

“I think the ‘freak show’ has come to us girls.” Caleb reached into the pockets of his pants, pulling out three vials and shoving two and Temps and me. “Throw ‘em. I’m not sure what they do.”

“Now, now.” KitKat swung wide, and I had to duck under the huge, weighted head of the hammer. “No outside treats!”

“Ah!” I rolled, the sledgehammer colliding with the floor behind me in a deafening crash. Temps and Caleb darted to the other side, and I forced myself into a crouch so I could get moving again. “Meet at the door!”

We all got the message, and I ducked back as the conjoined twin sang again, barely dodging the long reach of the weapon.

I sprinted toward the door, a fucking pipe organ starting up in the background as the “freaks” giggled relentlessly.

Big Boy went after Temps and Caleb, slicing through the air with that machete.

“Hold still, folks! You’re ruining the trick! You know, the part when…” I watched Temps flash her light up in his face, and bright illumination revealed the horrific, torn flesh and stitches holding him together, each patch a different skin tone. “...I slice myself a new addition!”

“Oh, little witch,” a sing-song voice called behind me, and I risked a glance over my shoulder to see the twin barreling toward me, weapon poised over its shoulder, “hold still! Imma make some heathen paste! Eat it up and send it to Him, too! He loves to chomp on some abominations, too! Crunch those witches—”

I threw the ball of light on my hand to its face, and it screeched, reeling back as the sledgehammer came down again, demolishing the floor.

“—between His teeth!” The words came out on a horrible roar, a boom that shook the room at a pitch so low I almost couldn’t understand it.

As the light made the twin clear enough to see, I hucked the bottle Caleb gave me right at its face.

In a whoosh, the liquid erupted into flames, burning down the front of the twin.

It screamed, dropping the sledgehammer and clawing at its flesh as it charred and melted off.

The smell was fucking awful, making me gag.

The hammer.

I leaped forward, snatching the weapon off the floor just as the twin reached for me, rolling out of the way and back toward the door. I took off for it, leveling the head of the hammer with the doorknob and swinging away. The locked panel flew open, wood chunks hitting the floor.

“It’s open! Come on!”

Caleb hooked a clawed hand under Temps’ arm and hauled her toward the door as he ran. He was a lot faster, even in hybrid form. Temps cranked back her other arm and lobbed the vial she held at Big Boy. It smashed against his face as he ran into her light, making him stop.

“No! Argh!” He bellowed so loud, and I watched in horror as he struggled to catch pieces of his sewn flesh as the sloughed off his face.

The green mist that wafted over him from the vial leaked down his body, and more and more of his patches came loose, tumbling to the ground as he literally fell apart.

Holy fucking shit.

Temps and Caleb made it to me as a little pile of skin and fat and muscle piled up on the floor, still screaming about putting him back together.

The suit of people this thing had made for himself was all in shambles, like discarded fabric on the floor.

I gagged again, tasting bile at the back of my throat.

“I will never not see that in my head.” I shook, still reeling as Caleb grabbed me, still holding Temps, and threw us all through the door.

We hit the floor on the other side of the doorway, and it disappeared behind us.

Fluffy, musty dust puffed up around us as we pulled ourselves to standing.

We were in the main tent. Thankfully, we were off to the side, not in the center, and to our left, a row of cages sat next to a gap in the wooden stands.

“Caleb?”

He turned to a cage near the end of the short row, hurrying toward it as I pulled Temps into my arms. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m…well, I’m right where you are. The shoulder is okay, sore but okay.”

As we looked back over at Caleb, he stood at one of the cages, gripping the bars in both hands.

I took Temps’ hand and hurried that way, shocked to see that Dean Owens was inside.

Her suit was a mess, torn and stained with blood from a wound that’d dried on her head and some I couldn’t see on her legs.

“You’re alive. Fucking hell, let’s get you out of there.” Caleb threw back his hand, his claws extending all the more, and he slashed down through the bars like they were butter.

The dean took a step forward, collapsing into his arms when she couldn’t walk. Temps and I helped to keep her upright as we all walked her over to the side of the tent, leaning her against the subtly moving fabric.

“Get our guests lined up in the center of the ring.”

A familiar voice called out from across the ring, and we pulled the dean into the shadows with us as we hid behind the stands, peering through the slim gaps between the slats of wood.

The Ring Leader came out with that same pair of performers from the trapeze.

The two of them held a line of chained people, all dressed up like black-and-white clowns with much newer-looking costumes.

They led the sacrifices—because that’s totally what they were—to the center of the ring, parading them in a line until they reached just in front of this massive rune that had been painted on the ground. The trapeze performers shoved them down to their knees, and I counted the people.

There were nine of them—the previously mentioned faithful who’d been chosen that morning.

“Excellent.” The Ring Leader walked to the center of the ring, standing in the middle of the rune. “We will begin.”

“Shit, Caleb, it’s starting. What the fuck do we do?”

I looked to him, Temps on his other side, and he shook his head, his expression grim. “I don’t know. I—Fuck, I’m not sure what’s supposed to stop him. We need to take out the Ring Leader, probably. Those trapeze people.”

“And how do we do that? He’s about to open up the portal!” I whisper-shouted, gesturing at the circle where the Ring Leader, one Jebediah Paine Junior, stood with his arms outstretched toward the sky.

“Which means he’ll be vulnerable.” The dean spoke in a pained whisper, pointing at the rune. “He’s going to channel the demiurge. Those sigils. He’s going to soul weave it.”

Like Caleb did .

I focused on the circle where Pastor Pricktips was chanting low. He needed to focus on the spell, concentrate, and when Caleb had done it, there was a brief window when he’d been completely gone to the spell, wrapped up in the magic.

“It could work.” Temps looked down as she thought, her eyes searching as she waved a hand in tiny, frantic gestures. “But we’ll need something to keep the sacrifices safe. If even one of them dies, it’ll trigger the spell to begin.”

“I can create a barrier.” Dean Owens grunted as she pulled herself to the edge of the stands, leaning on the wooden slat at her chest, his lids looking real damn heavy. “I’ll keep them protected for now. You three, or four, I guess, take out that piece of shit.”

“We have no choice.” Caleb looked between Temps and me, his body shifting again as Cerberus came to the surface completely, taking over. “ Target your attacks. Focus on Paine. Call up the power in your blood, your ancestry. ”

I took their hands, reaching into their heads because I couldn’t let the dean hear me.

I love you, weirdos. We do this, or we go down fighting.

They held my eyes, sending those messages back at me as the dean worked her fingers through the air, a shimmer of magic appearing around the chained group.

Here we fucking go.