But it’s awful close.

I remained on one knee, instinct fighting with cold logic. If he leapt for me, my chances were better here, where I was centered and had some clear space, than if I tried to get to my feet now. Training won out, and I stayed where I was, gun in my right hand and whip in the other, shaken free with a jingling sound. Saul was to one side, still growling but staying out of the way—just where he should have been.

A choked rattle echoed inside the gaunt silver trailer. My apprentice-ring cooled, a band of ice on my third left finger. The Ringmaster snarled and doubled over, falling to the ground with a wet writhing thump. Black ichor splashed, and the entire Cirque stilled, the faint ever-present calliope music skipping a beat. It limped and wheezed, gaps opening between the notes.

What the hell?

The Ringmaster screamed, and his cane quivered. The thin cry was echoed from inside the trailer, and I was suddenly sure that something else was happening I’d better take a look at.

I uncoiled, force pulled through the scar, and cleared the busted stairs and the Ringmaster in one leap. Landed on my toes, my center of gravity pulled up high and tight, and plunged into the trailer.

A pale shape lay, seizure bowing it up into a hoop, on the frowsty shelf-bed. It was the hostage, and just as I reached the side of the bed, wading through a drift of empty clicking shells and candy bar wrappers, the Trader began to rattle deep down in his chest.

Oh, fuck.

The hostage was dying. And if he shuffled off the mortal coil now, we were looking at a seriously fucked-up situation.

I dropped the whip, shoved the gun back in its holster, and leapt for the bed.

My hellbreed-strong right hand closed around Ikaros’s throat, and I braced myself, knees on either side of his narrow rib cage. “Oh, no you don’t,” I snarled, and ripped the leather wristcuff free, one of the buckles breaking and hitting the side of the trailer with a sweet tinkle.

A razor-barbed mass of etheric energy pooled in my palm, slammed through the Trader’s body. The ratcheting sound from his narrow chest peaked, and I heard the Ringmaster howl like a damned soul outside.

Get it, Jill? Like a damned soul? Arf, arf.

The air turned hard and dark, something alien pressing through the fabric of reality, hovering over the twisting body on the bed. I took in a harsh breath and pushed, the sea-urchin spikes of my aura dappling the inside of the trailer with aqueous light. The sudden welter of sensory overload from the scar’s unveiling crested over me, my skin suddenly alive and my nose full of a complicated tangle of scents. Tears welled up hot and hard, my eyes coping with a sudden onslaught, every crack and wrinkle in the world visible.

The Trader hostage twitched and convulsed again, his teeth actually grinding. The collar’s spikes bit my skin, blessed metal burning. I let out a short hawk’s cry, the force of whatever was torturing the Trader giving me a short, hard punch in the solar plexus. It tasted like lit-up liquor fumes and hit the back of my throat, roared past me like a barreling freight train.

My free left hand jabbed up, two fingers snapping out, lined with twisting sorcerous flame. Banefire burned blue, hissing, but there was no helltaint for it to catch hold of.

The thing struggling to come through hit me hard in the face, my head snapping aside, and blood exploded from my mouth and nose in a bright gush, droplets hanging in a perfect arc for a long timeless second before splashing against the trailer wall.

So banefire wasn’t going to work. Ikaros surged underneath me again, his body moving in weird angled jumps, like his bones were trying to turn themselves into rubbery corkscrews.

Goddammit, what the hell is going on here?

Fortunately, banefire wasn’t the only trick up my sleeve. Intuition meshed with recent memory, and as he screamed so did I, our twinned voices rising in harmony again as my fingers tightened, the collar’s spikes dragged at the meat of my wrist and forearm again, and I pushed with every ounce of sorcerous strength I could dredge up in an entirely different direction.

As if I was exorcising him.

The pressure built, excruciating heat behind my bulging eyeballs and under my stomach, the last bit of air escaping me in a huuuungh! of effort. Ikaros rattled again, but this time it wasn’t the hideous I’m-dying type of rattle. No, this time it was the inhale of blessed sweet air, and my apprentice-ring gave another twinging pull. He began to thrash with inhuman strength, but without the corkscrewing weirdness.

The thing hovering over him snapped with a sound like thick elastic breaking, a high, hard pop! that might have been funny if there hadn’t been a sudden gush of green smoke and chittering legs. The roaches swarmed, falling out of a point in thin air directly above us, and both of us yelled in miserable surprise. The roaches vanished as they peppered us, more sickly pea-soup smoke eddied and billowed, and the Trader surged up.

He had a lot of pep for someone who was just being sorcerously strangled a few seconds ago. But I had the upper hand and my booted foot on one of his wrists in a trice, and I ground down with the steelshod heel, a simple flexing movement. The collar slashed even more cruelly at my wrist, but I ignored the pain rolling up my arm, hot blood slicking my grip on the hostage’s throat. “Settle the fuck down!” I yelled. “Settle down, I’m trying to help!”

The irony of the situation—I was yelling that I was trying to help a Trader—didn’t escape me. He subsided just a little, blue eyes rolling like a terrified horse’s. I waited until I was sure he wasn’t going to thrash again and eased up just slightly on his throat. He kept breathing in high harsh whistles.

I kept watching, loosening my fingers by increments. They actually creaked, I moved so slowly. Harsh voices babbled outside, a whirlpool of surprise, and I heard a werecougar’s low thrumming growl.

That managed to get me off the bed, shaking out my right hand. Blood flew, dripping down from my scored wrist, and I was suddenly glad none of the blessed silver spikes had touched the scar. I’d had silver against the hellbreed kiss once before, and had no desire to repeat the experience.

Ikaros lay, his ribs flickering with deep heaving breaths, on the tangled bed. His eyes closed, heavily, and he curled into a ball as I backed away. I realized he was naked, light dancing and dappling his haunches. Old burn scars traveled up both legs, clasping his buttocks with angry rope fingers. I scooped up my whip without pausing, two strides kicking up a tide of candy bar wrappers. The green smoke began to thin, and the empty cockroach shells were vanishing with little crackling popcorn sounds.

The stairs were indeed shattered, and Saul crouched in front of them, one hand braced on the dusty earth. The trembling in his aura told me he was just on the edge of shifting, and his snarl rose steadily.

I didn’t blame him. Because gathered in a loose semicircle, pressing close in an arc of sharp teeth and hellfire-glowing eyes, were hellbreed and Traders. The Ringmaster hooked his cane up with one clawed hand, the crystal spitting spark after agonized green spark and his entire tattered costume swimming and dripping black ichor.

It was going to hurt as he healed, the silver residue poisoning him. Let’s hope it doesn’t make him crazier than he already is. Control the situation, Jill. I cleared leather, pointed the gun up, and squeezed off a shot. The sound crackled through both Saul’s growl and the rising noise coming from the hellbreed, a deep thrum of Helletöng like iron balloons rubbing together.