I gripped my sword’s hilt a little tighter, ready to jab her, but she swirled away, flaring her colorful skirt as she did so.

“I have never been so keyed up in my life.” I let out a shaky breath. “This is really fucking with me, man.”

“You will at least blend in.”

“Please don’t say I blend into this crowd. That is not good news for my self-esteem.”

We picked up the pace. A clown ran past, different than the one I’d seen before, wearing giant red shoes with claws sticking out the ends. Its face was mostly white, but some of the paint had rubbed off and black-spotted green skin shone through. Teeth that ended in points punctuated the clown’s silent scream.

A roar shook the ground, beastly and deep. A giant lion, nearly as tall as I was, padded after the scary clown. It shook its mighty mane. The edges glowed with the colors flaring all around it.

Bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom.

I pulled Darius to the side, because we didn’t need to tangle with something that had a scary clown running from it. As we moved, though, the lion’s nose twitched. Its giant head swung our way.

“Run!” I yelled.

Another roar shook the ground.

I didn’t wait for Darius to give his assent. I took off in the direction of the clown. If I got lucky, I could catch it and trip it. As long as Darius and I weren’t the last in line, we were golden.

Another roar rattled my bones. Darius was beside me a moment later.

It’s coming after us, he thought.

“No shit, Sherlock. What’d you think it was going to do, give us a cuddle?” I weaved in and out of the tents, hoping to lose it that way. In my peripheral vision, I saw things flying forward. A glance back and my blood ran cold.

The lion was bowling through the small tents, flinging them every which way with such force they fell to our sides. Papers and other debris, whatever was in those tents, flew around us. There was a solid thunk of an old-school typewriter as it sank into the ground five feet away.

“That doesn’t even fit with the theme!” I hollered, angling right to get out of the tents.

I thought you usually ran at attacks.

“That is a freaking giant lion, man! I’m not trying to go head to head with a lion with nothing but a sword.”

You are not being rational.

The lion roared as it burst out into the open strip leading to the huge circus tent. Demons of all shapes and sizes, most fitting with circus theme, including a little boy with a big lollipop and a forked tongue, scattered.

“All the other demons are taking off, and you think I’m irrational?” I picked up speed, but I heard it right behind us, shaking the ground with each step. It didn’t look big and heavy enough to concuss the ground with footsteps, which meant there was an illusion afoot, and the real creature was probably gigantic. All the more reason to run.

Another roar and all the tents leading up to the circus arches tumbled through the air like paper in a tornado. The ice magic within me throbbed right before something swatted my backside. The lion shared a few of my magical tricks. Wonderful.

I went flying, just like those tents, ass over end.

“It’s powerful,” I said as I hit the ground and rolled. Darius tumbled beside me, for once not looking like a graceful elder vampire.

Let’s go. Hurry! he thought frantically.

Like I needed to be told.

We jumped up as one and sprinted for the circus gates, the huge golden archway glittering manically with the reflection of lights.

Bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom.

The lion’s roar drowned out the music as we raced through the arches. A collection of women dressed in red performance suits rolled by on a unicycle, one stacked on top of the other, fanning out to the sides. Honestly, it was pretty impressive.

“Eat them,” I yelled over my shoulder at the lion, pointing at the stacked women. “They have a better presentation.”

The lion got to the gates and pulled up short, letting out another hearty roar, this time sounding frustrated. We ducked behind a Chinese pagoda-looking thing, the big top at our backs, and glanced out.

The lion paced the gates, sniffing and staring. It wouldn’t pass through them. The demons that had scattered before still hadn’t come out of hiding.

“All the demons in there are afraid of that lion, and that lion is afraid of whatever is in here,” I said softly. “Where have you brought us, Darius, and how the hell are we going to get through?”

Chapter Eighteen

The obvious answer was not to go through the enormous circus tent, but to go around.

The sect seemed to have thought of that.

One side of the tent had pits dug a hundred feet out and going as far back as I could see. Some of those pits were obvious, but—as I quickly found out—some spots that looked like solid ground fell away to spikes of doom.

The other side of the big top ended in a steep cliff that dropped off into nothing. The gorge also spanned about a hundred feet. Someone must have dug it out, because there was no natural reason for there to be a huge drop-off between the two sides.

Clearly they wanted people to experience the circus, or die.

Back near the archway, the lion had wandered off. It had probably found someone new to chase.

“Why don’t we head back to the boat? I bet one will be there,” I said, squinting as a means to block out the music. It didn’t work. Go figure.

Ja mentioned this area was considered the wilds, and it was the best place to get in unnoticed.

“Ja might also have been trying to kill you, remember? She downplayed the whole fog thing.”

We will encounter one or two powerful demons in any of the entry points, and encounter more concentrated sects of power as we get deeper in. There is no easy way to accomplish our tasks, Reagan.

I knew he was right, which made me grumpier.

Fresh sawdust was sprinkled on the well-kept ground in a direct path to the entrance of the circus tent. A monkey wearing a tutu idled by with its hands raised, chirping. Another ten feet down the path, rope lined with colored plastic flags rose along either side of the path, wide at first, then narrowing.

Off to the side of the flap sat a ticket booth with a lone attendant, a bearded cheerleader standing a head taller than Darius.

“How many?” came the attendant’s deep, scratchy voice.

One was on my tongue, but what if they saw through Darius’s suit? They’d probably be more offended by an attempt to break the rules and sneak someone in than they would be by having a vampire in their midst.

On the other hand, admitting to two was pointing out that I had a friend. An invisible friend. Who was lurking around somewhere. Spying.

No one liked spying.

“How many?” the cheerleader asked again.

A presence behind us had me glancing back. I did a double take. Two torsos (and heads) connected at the chest and reduced down to one set of hips and legs.

“Uh huh, that’s happening,” I said, turning back. “Two.”

Without asking for payment, the cheerleader slid two black tickets across the wooden booth. It looked beyond me to the conjoined twins.

“All righty, then.” I edged away, trying to play it cool. I held both tickets and continued through the flap of the circus tent. Light spilled out from within, and that ever present bim-bom, bim-bom, bim-bom rose in volume. It was said that you could never get too much of a good thing, and clearly, this crowd loved that monotonous music.

Would anybody notice if I burned this whole shebang to the ground?

Hesitantly, I continued on until I saw what was in there. Then started back-pedaling, bumping into Darius and making it no farther.

What is the matter? he thought.

Outside, I’d gotten used to the constant flashing of hysterical color. All of that cut away inside. The interior of the tent was decorated with lines of alternating black and white, spinning around the tent—small at the top, growing larger and larger until they splashed down at the bottom. Rows of bench seating, also alternating black and white, led down to the empty, round, black performance area on the bottom. Spotlights of brilliant, dizzying white flew around the enormous space.

“Seriously, would anyone notice if I burned all this to the ground? That is now an honest question.”

Darius’s hand on my back, pushing me forward, was not the answer I was looking for. Let’s walk around the top and get out any way we can.