Queen of Babylon by Michael Ferris Gibson

Author:Michael Ferris Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Girl Friday Books
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Found Family

You’d think when surrounded by acts of varying thrill, the patrons wouldn’t find us so interesting. I didn’t have any talent fit for entertainment, and as far as I knew, neither did Oktai. Clo had stopped her sexy dance, and El no longer threw knives. No, we shouldn’t have held the fascination of those inside. But like everything on this mission, if it could go wrong, it did. Every person, or creature, in the circus had stilled. They merely stared, then slowly unsheathed weapons. Knives. Clubs. Spears. Whatever they must have smuggled inside. Aunt Connie had loved Fight Club, but this was shaping up more like another movie I shouldn’t have watched at a young age: Gangs of New York.

I glanced at the twins. Both were breathing hard while assessing the crowd. My legs bent into a defensive stance as I asked them, “Is this normally how your shows end?”

El grunted, but Clo’s expression turned thoughtful. “I usually flip into a somersault.”

“Shut up, Clo,” El snapped. A laugh slipped from my throat, and she glared at me. “You can shut up, too, Tik-Tok.”

“Josephine,” I countered. “My name is Josephine.”

“Well, Josephine,” El said as a rotund man with a particularly large club shouldered his way to the front of the crowd. It was as if he was under a spell, perhaps the same one that had mystified the Yettis before I showed up. Only his eyes blazed with violence as he began to shuffle toward us. “Do you know what’s happening?”

“Well, I can’t give you a full report. Just, there’s a curator in here, and we got their attention.” The twins stared blankly at my mention of the curators. Maybe they hadn’t gotten the education I did in terms of Siberian entities. I sighed. “Look, I shouldn’t have said I’d tear this place up. That’s a threat to a curator. And now it wants to mess us up. Got it?”

“Got it,” chimed Clo.

“And any suggestions for getting out of here?” El’s eyes were locked on the man with the club, sizing him up, just as I weighed our chances of bypassing both him and the crowd in favor of the circus’s one exit.

Oktai spoke before I could. “We entered through a tunnel, which isn’t far away.” He pointed in its direction. “The only problem is that it’s behind . . .”

“The zombie people,” said Clo.

I took inventory of my motley crew. All very human, and impossibly vulnerable. Dammit. “We need a path through them. All of you just follow me, and I’ll clear the way.”

“Hey, relax, hero.” Clo twirled her knives between her fingers. “We’re not exactly helpless.”

“You’re human.” My words were flat. “And I need you to get me to my sister, so you have to stay in one piece.”

Clo smirked. “We’ll be in one piece, but I don’t know about them. I’m the one that’s good with knives. And besides, I was getting a little sick of the dance anyway.”

Movement in the crowd grabbed my attention. That man with the club was yards away and picking up his pace.

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