– Didn’t count ’em, or don’t know how?

I look to Lydia.

– These guys are assholes. We should go before they waste any more of our time.

The midget points at me.

– Watch who you’re calling asshole, shorty.

I tap my watch.

– Terry said there were supposed to be a couple dozen of them. What have we seen? Six assholes. There ain’t no more. They’re carneys. Professional liars. And they’re spastic. C’mon, we both know we’re not taking any of these losers to Manhattan. Let’s blow.

He looks at Lydia.

– Best put a muzzle on your hound, lady.

– Joe’s not a dog, he’s a person. And I am not a lady, I am a woman.

The midget runs a fingertip over the fresh seam of blisters that crosses his stomach. The white tips are already fading, pinking, healing; the Vyrus is putting the blood he sucked from the dead guy to good use.

He sips some beer.

– Hatter, look up woman in that dictionary, tell me if that’s some other way of saying girl.

Lydia folds her arms and looks at the ground. -Girl?

The midget purses his lips and covers his mouth with a finger.

– Oopsy. Did I say a no-no? Did I let slip with a term that doesn’t fit with your lifestyle choices? Honey.

A little snicker runs around the tent. Only the Strongman doesn’t laugh.

A thin stream of air slides between Lydia’s lips. She looks at the midget.

– What did you say your name was?

The midget points at one of the faded blue tattoos on his neck.

– Like it says right here. Stretch. Name’s Stretch.

She squints at the tattoo.

– Yeah. Stretch. OK, clearly I’m not going to be able to make my point with you the way I’d like to. Let me put it another way.

She pauses, looks at the top of the tent’s center-pole, where smoke from the torches and the brazier slips out through a large hole, and looks back at him.

– You are fucked.

He raises his eyebrows.

– Fucked?

She nods.

– Raw. You had a chance not to be, but you are now officially fucked raw.

He blows out his lips, reaches back and rubs a buttock.

– Hell, fucked raw and I didn’t even get a reach-around.

The snicker goes around the tent again, but not as far.

Lydia nods again.

– Yeah, no reach-around. See, here you are, you and your Clan, and you need something. You need something so bad, you have to go outside of your inbred little comfort zone and look for help.

– Help? Ain’t no one asking for help around here. We’re the ones making offers.

She gives him a look up and another back down.

– Like. Hell.

He stands, grimaces as skin around his wound stretches.

– You want to start watching your lip, woman.

Lydia looks at me.

– Finally, he calls me what I am, and he thinks it’s an insult.

She looks at Vendetta and Harm.

– How can the two of you put up with being exploited by this piece of crap?

Vendetta grabs her crotch.

– Exploit this, cunt.

Lydia waves a hand.

– You’re not my type.

Stretch puts himself in front of Lydia.

– You leave them girls out of this.

Lydia squats slowly, puts herself on eye level with him.

– Gladly.

His lips peel from his gleaming teeth, a bit of pink gristle caught between two of them.

– You best start treading softly.

Lydia purses her lips and covers them with a finger.

– Oh, did I say something out of line? Pardon me, let me be clear so I can make that up to you.

She shows her own teeth.

– You are on the ass end of the world. You are all alone out here and someone has your back against it. And you are so fucking terrified you call us for help to get out. Joe’s right, isn’t he? This is it, just a half dozen of you? The way you pathetic, self-destructive dysfunctions live out here, you couldn’t sustain more than six members. And now, now you get a chance, a shot at getting off this sandbar and joining with a real Clan, having some stability, being a part of something real, and all you can do is swing your dick around and try to act like you don’t need the help you’re screaming for.

She shakes her head.

– Honestly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She straightens.

– You’re right, Joe, they’re assholes. Let’s go.

She starts for the exit.

Stretch takes a step after her.

– Hey! Hey, now! Now wait a second.

Lydia stops and turns.

– What?

Stretch licks his lips.

– You got a mouth on you, lady. Some mouth. Come on a man’s turf and talk that way. Some mouth. Takes, know what that takes, takes balls. You got some balls on you. I like that. That’s OK by me. You come back in here and let’s have a beer and we’ll do the swap and get rolling. We’re all introduced now, so let’s do some business.

Lydia creases her forehead.

– Asshole, you missed the point. We don’t want you. You people are a mess. You’re going to have to stay out here where you belong. Until you get kicked into the ocean.

She turns again.

Stretch snaps his fingers.

The Strongman’s eyes narrow behind the headman’s hood. Harm sets the mason jar aside and rests her hand on her sledgehammer. Vendetta’s fingers tighten on the iron poker. Hatter opens his dictionary wide and a derringer drops from the hollowed pages into his hand. Glasseater licks his lips.

Stretch folds his arms over his little barrel chest.

– Tell me, you uptight Manhattan snobs think you can talk to me like that and walk out of here in one piece?

I pull the hogleg from my belt and put it against his forehead.

– Tell me, do you think you clowns can stop me if I decide to blow your stomach open, rip your guts back out, stretch them across the boardwalk, and run my van over them a few times?

Lydia raises both her hands, opens her mouth to chill the situation, and something slaps the stiff canvas of the tent, whispers through the air and imbeds itself in her neck.

I blink.

– Jesus fuck, is that an arrow?

A heavy rain hits the tent, sharp reports followed by chorused sighs.

Fletched steel shafts sprout in the sand. Pepper the table and the corpse. Bristle from the Strongman’s back as he scoops Vendetta and Harm together and bends his body over theirs. Glasseater gnashes his broken teeth on the one that springs out of his mouth, and finds it inedible. They chase Stretch as he crawls under the stage. Hatter pulls one from his foot, turns and runs into a flock of them that pelt his chest and face.

I drop to the ground. One passes through my right biceps and into my side, pinning my arm to my torso.

The storm stops.

Something black flutters at the entrance of the tent. I see the Wraith in my memory, stop breathing, roll onto my left side, fire both barrels of the hogleg, the recoil jerking my arm back, the shaft of the arrow tearing flesh, the barbed tip twisting between two ribs.

The black shape in the entrance sprays a cloud of blood and explodes back into the night.

A man, a man in a cape. Only a man.

I breathe. Smell the Vyrus thick in the fresh blood.

Not a Wraith, but not a man. More are out there.

I get up. Lydia has the arrow in her neck, more in her legs and abdomen. I grab her and drag her toward the rear of the tent, kicking the brazier from its stand as I pass it, spilling flaming coals over the grease-stained carpets and under the dry boards of the stage and the bleachers.

Fire wastes no time, begins to eat the tent and its contents.

I reach the back of the tent, drop Lydia, grab the canvas at its base and heave it up, tearing long iron stakes from the sand. I look back, see more black shapes beating at the entrance, leaping across the flames, the trailing wings of one catching fire.

The Strongman rises, porcupined in steel, and takes his broadsword from the edge of the stage as Vendetta and Harm worm beneath the platform, over the coals scattered there. Two of the caped silhouettes jump, the broadsword arcs, dividing one of the shapes into two bleeding halves and imbedding in the other before it slams into him and drives him onto his back. The heads of the arrows burst from his chest and stomach and he grabs the wounded attacker and pulls him close and fire is reflected everywhere in blood.