Mongrel Read online

  “Some. I’ve barely been here a year.”

  “What do you know about the features that haven’t yet opened?” Perfidor backed away by a foot or two, as if aware of Will’s discomfiture.

  “Not very much,” Will said warily. “I’ve heard them referred to as the Demimen exhibits. I believe they’re to begin operating at the beginning of next season.”

  “And do you know what they consist of?”

  Will didn’t like talking about the planned attractions. He found the concept of Demimen even more unnerving than he found Mongrels. Besides, he didn’t think it was his place to divulge what he’d heard to a stranger, much less a Taintwellian. “I’m afraid I’m not in a position to discuss that. I mean, it’s up to Mr. Hunzinger to dispense such information.”

  “I should’ve anticipated this,” Perfidor muttered. Frowning, he lapsed into thought.

  Will found himself increasingly fascinated by this man. And he was every inch a man, in spite of his unbalanced ratio.

  “Can you at least tell me what Demimen are?” Perfidor asked. He waved vaguely in the direction of the Cave of the Seers at Will’s back. “Might they be like the constructs behind you? Mechanical figures?”

  Nibbling at his lower lip, Will glanced over his shoulder. “Not… exactly. Only in part. They’ll be alive.”

  “Alive.” Perfidor made the word as flat and frigid and cloudy as the eyes of a frozen fish.

  Will cleared his throat. “Yes.” Had he said too much? Not that it mattered now. He couldn’t unsay it. “I’ve heard they’re all casualties of the Great War who suffered crippling or disfiguring injuries. And rather than live as beggars or wards of the state, they chose to be employed by Mr. Hunzinger. He’s doing them a great service.”

  Perfidor narrowed his startling eyes. His face had gone hard. “Are you familiar with a man named Simon Bentcross? Or other men like him?”

  Will’s heart missed a beat. He couldn’t very well say Oh yes, I’m quite familiar with Mr. Bentcross. He introduced me to the joys of a particular kind of fellowship.

  “I’ve only heard the name,” he said in a hurried half-voice. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to retire for the evening.” He refused to make further eye contact with Perfidor. The Mongrel was simply too compelling for Will’s own good.

  Chapter Two

  THE centerpiece of Alphonse Hunzinger’s office, situated on the upper floor of his concert hall, was a gleaming mahogany desk with elaborate brass trim on all sides. Will couldn’t see all its sides, but reason dictated that each would be decorated with the same scrolls and exotic figures that graced the front. The master of the desk stood behind it, his burled knuckles resting on a leather top bordered in gilt.

  “What’s this I hear about that madman Fanule Perfidor skulking around my park last night?”

  The ragtag assemblage of workers and foremen, all of whom were on the grounds during evening hours, exchanged bewildered glances.

  “The Dog King?” asked Tom Terwilliker, who oversaw several concessions.

  “None other,” muttered Hunzinger.

  Will immediately tensed. The glint of Hunzinger’s small, dark eyes and the glower betrayed by the sag of his bountiful whiskers indicated extreme displeasure. He was a humorless man, quick to lay blame and even quicker to anger. How any living soul, Mrs. Hunzinger included, could tolerate his company was beyond Will’s comprehension. Purinton’s civic leaders seemed to like him well enough, though, so there must’ve been money passing into the Lord High Mayor’s office from the Mechanical Circus. It certainly hadn’t been Hunzinger’s charm that had won over the city’s bigwigs. In fact, other Circus workers sometimes remarked behind their hands that Mayor Pushbin himself was chummy with the man Will thought of as Hellzinger.

  “Well?” The boss’s disapproval now had an impatient edge. “Did any of you see the mercurial Mongrel?”

  Will hadn’t said a word about Perfidor’s appearance—why would he?—and wondered if some employee had seen Perfidor at his platform. His gaze shifted to the other people in the room, but nobody appeared to be implicating him with a pointed glance. Maybe he was safe. Maybe no one had witnessed the conversation. Although he’d done nothing untoward, Will had no desire to explain his contact with a creature so obviously scorned… and who had asked so many questions.

  The gathered workers voiced their ignorance of Perfidor’s presence.

  “Who said this individual was in the park?” asked a new employee named Cotton. He’d recently been hired to man the observation tower at the north end of the grounds.

  Timothy Painter answered. “I did. A couple who stopped at the oyster bar said they’d seen a tall, peculiar-looking man on the boardwalk. When I inquired further, I could tell from their description it was Perfidor.” He half-smiled. “The man is quite distinctive.”

  “He isn’t a man!” snapped Hunzinger.

  Cotton again spoke up. “Pardon me, but I don’t understand the problem here. If he’s been properly stigmatized, we can’t keep him away. Branded Mongrels are allowed to move about the city as long as they—”

  Hunzinger’s eyes flashed. “This is not the city, Mr. Cotton. Mongrels are turned away at our gate. In fact, they all know by now they’re not welcome here. Or should know. And considering Fanule Perfidor is now the Eminence of Taintwell”—he gave this phrase a snide edge—“he should know better than any of them.”

  “He’s the what?” Cotton asked.

  Hunzinger sighed and rubbed his forehead. Beneath his fingers, liver-spotted skin crimped and puckered. “The Mongrels decided they wanted their own leader, so Mayor Pushbin allowed them a leader. They chose Perfidor and hung him with a title. Damned if I know what he does, the mad bastard, aside from raising hell and ravaging young villagers.”

  Some of the men chuckled uneasily.

  Will kept his silence. He knew very little about the Mongrels of Taintwell and nothing about the “Dog King.” It occurred to him that he might be able to curry favor with Hunzinger by recounting his meeting with Perfidor, but he balked at doing so.

  Vaguely, he wondered why. Perhaps it had to do with his Uncle Penrose’s admonition, “Keep your nose clean,” which meant never tattling and never interfering in other people’s business. Or perhaps his reticence had to do with something else entirely.

  “Listen, all of you,” Hunzinger said sternly. “Title or no title, Perfidor’s presence at the Mechanical Circus will not be tolerated. He’s unbalanced and quite dangerous when he’s on a roar.” Pausing dramatically, he leaned forward, still braced on his knuckles. “And he’s a light sucker. I cannot risk having him terrorize my guests or darken my concessions. On a whim alone, he could do both.” Hunzinger straightened. “From now on, should any of you spy Perfidor on these grounds, you’re to notify the Strongarm Force immediately. I cannot emphasize this enough. Pass the word among your coworkers. I don’t know how that creature gained access to my park, but he’ll not be able to wander around freely again.”

  Will glanced at the four-faced chronometer attached to the office ceiling. Soon, the whistle of the first local train would shrill, the locomotive would squeal and huff as it stopped before Jubilation Depot, and the cars would disgorge the first visitors of the day. He had to get to his sales stand.

  Hunzinger, obviously aware of the time, freed his captive audience. Relief flooded through Will. Shuffling along, their footfalls whispering over the carpeting, every man on the evening crew trickled out of Hellzinger’s sanctum sanctorum.

  Will joined the stream. His mind spun around what he’d heard. “The Dog King… Eminence of Taintwell… unbalanced… a light sucker.”

  Perfidor hadn’t seemed unbalanced. And what was a light sucker?

  “Mr. Marchman.”

  Will’s stomach shriveled as he stopped and turned. The other men flowed around him. “Yes?”

  “Sales going well?” Hunzinger’s bulk now filled the commodious leather chair behind his desk.

  �
��Quite.”

  “I look forward to perusing your figures.”

  Will waited to be dismissed. Hunzinger lowered his eyes to a sprawl of papers on his desk and finally flicked his fingers in Will’s direction. Trying not to sigh audibly, Will fled the office.

  He crossed the large reception area, turned into a hallway, and, at its end, opened the door to the stairwell. Someone was thudding up the steps. Still jittery from his narrow escape, Will kept his eyes lowered as he began his descent.

  Until that someone grabbed him by the upper arms and flattened him against the wall.

  “Can’t you spare a moment for a friend?”

  Before the rough voice died in his ears, Will felt a smoky crush of lips against his mouth. He groaned softly and lifted his hands to the assailant’s ribcage. It was sheathed in thick corduroy, still damp from the morning mist. He gripped the fabric as stubble scoured his chin, and his mouth eagerly opened to the tongue that sought entry.

  The body pressed more aggressively against him. Simon’s body, broad and hard and smelling of soot and pinesap. Will’s cock pulsed.

  “You’re not even struggling,” Simon whispered against Will’s mouth.

  “No.” Will had no desire to struggle. He wanted only to surrender. It had been so long….

  A door creaked below them. Simon’s lightning reflexes sent him two steps down, where he immediately fell into a casual stance. Will tried to compose himself and calm his breathing.

  “So,” Simon said, “if I can’t get to your stand before you lock up your medicine for the night—”

  A suited and mustachioed man in a derby passed up the stairs between them.

  “I keep a small stock of elixir in my wagon,” said Will, who’d grown used to their obscure telegraphy. They’d had to learn months ago how to communicate when other people were around.

  “Would nine be too late to stop by?” asked Simon.

  Although his cropped brown hair stuck out to every compass point, and his face was unshaven, and both his olive green vest and the coarse shirt beneath it were stained with dirt, Simon Bentcross made Will weak in the knees.

  “I suspect I’ll still be up at nine,” Will answered, unaware of his double entendre until Simon grinned.

  Blushing, Will straightened his jacket and smiled. “I should get to my station now.”

  The man who’d interrupted them reached the second floor and exited the stairwell. As soon as its door closed, Will walked down two steps. Simon cupped his face and murmured, “You needn’t dress for company.” After delivering a quick kiss, he proceeded up the stairs.

  Will blew out a sigh and tried surreptitiously to arrange his thickened cock within his trousers.

  Now he was truly in turmoil… especially when he recalled that Perfidor had asked about Simon Bentcross.

  ONCE he’d reached his modest dwelling in Taintwell last night, Fanule had slept like the dead. He arose feeling sluggish but forced himself to draw a bath. Filling the oversized tin tub in a corner of the kitchen was so much easier with Ape Chiggeree’s invention that Fanule silently thanked him. The sun-warmed gravitational water system was a minor but very welcome blessing in a generally accursed world.

  Fanule first shaved with a gleaming straight razor before a tarnish-spotted mirror. Except for the sideburns that ran to the hinge of his jaw, he found hair on his face an irritant. Then he eased into the slant-backed tub and washed his hair.

  It was a chore, like trying to draw his booted feet out of deep mud. Not good. Whenever a simple task seemed burdensome, or any movement became a supreme exercise of will, it meant he was descending into melancholy. Sometimes the descent was gradual; sometimes, precipitous.

  He needed to see Lizabetta. If he took her herbal powder twice a day without fail, his moods became more stable. It was another blessing, a major one, and he’d neglected it for too long… in spite of the crazed reminders he’d scrawled on his parlor walls when he was flying and then scrubbed off when he was earthbound again.

  Fanule closed his eyes and rested his head against the tub’s rim as he ran a soapy sponge over his neck and chest and limbs, under his arms, between his legs. He suddenly realized how much he longed for the caress of a lover. When he felt wanton, his hunger was insatiable. When he felt woeful, his hunger disappeared. Neither state led to satisfaction. It was only in the middle of the bridge, that place of balance, that his desire had the right degree of intensity.

  Yes, he must see Lizabetta.

  As he slowly scooped water over his body, he thought of Will Marchman, the peddler of another kind of potion. Was he a twor, a two-door, a lover of men? Fanule had sensed he was. Or maybe he’d only hoped.

  In either case, the pitchman was young and lithe and pleasing to the sight, and he made for delectable fantasies.

  Fanule smiled as he conjured an image of William’s face—yes, William; that must be his name, and that’s what it would be in Fanule’s dreams. He again saw that expressive face tilted down at him. The rose-tinted porcelain skin, the short, straight nose above lips like pink cushions. And his wavy hair. Even that absurdly tall hat and a gloss of pomade hadn’t concealed the waves in his hair. They’d rippled above his ears like sand on the seafloor. The color of his eyes, too, mirrored the sea. A warmer sea, a distant sea, where pale gray softened an aquamarine brightness. How large, his eyes, with their delicate feathering of lashes. And how perfectly his brows arched above them. Fanule felt like an immense, glowering goblin compared with the lovely Mr. Marchman.

  Sighing, he looked at the bottle of Bloodroot Elixir on his kitchen table, where he’d set it last night. Sunlight slanting through a window glanced off the yellowish-brown glass. One side of the bottle was embossed with the product name. The other side bore a paper label with a line drawing of Dr. Bolt in the center. It was a predictable portrayal of a likely fictitious man—pouchy-eyed, heavily whiskered, and solemn. Fanule was unimpressed.

  He’d only bought the stuff in an attempt to engage the salesman in conversation, win him over, and lower his guard. The purchase was supposed to be an opening. Actually partaking of the tonic was out of the question, because Lizabetta had long ago warned Fanule not to resort to patent medicines. “They’ll slowly poison your body,” she’d said, “and addle your brain. Your money would be better spent on a bottle of fine wine. It would have the same effect without the danger.”

  However, Sweet William had been wary of him. Of course he had. Not all humans were like the ones Fanule met in public houses and alleyways.

  Once he was clean, dried off, and dressed, Fanule left his house via the rear door and went to a small barn that was a short walk away. As he approached the battered one-man transport he kept beside the horse stall, Cloudburst chuffed and nodded. The gelding was obviously hoping to go for a ride.

  “I’m sorry, my man,” Fanule said, stroking the horse’s neck, “but you don’t want to be where I’m going.” Animals became skittish around Lizabetta’s dwelling. It was understandable.

  After he got enough heat going to enliven the OMT’s small fire-tube boiler, Fanule folded himself into the vehicle’s wooden shell and puttered west out of Taintwell on the rutted Old Post Road. He soon saw the knobby, copper-clad spire of the Truth and Justice Building many miles to the south. Verdigris patina made it a dull green spike thrust into a bloated yellow sky. Farther behind it, smokestacks coughed up fountains of gray particulates. Close to it, a hot-air balloon lowered from the sky, likely delivering a dignitary or doomed man.

  For as long as Fanule could remember, Taintwellians had called the Truth and Justice Building “the Monkey’s Claw” and City Hall “the Monkey’s Jaw.”

  The T&J spire was even more ghastly and imposing when it was lit up at night. Hunzinger’s Circus and the buildings ringing Purinton’s Civic Plaza were the only places in the province with electrical service. Somewhere beneath the cobblestones, in a barrel-vaulted belly of a space, a steam engine churned out enough power to rotate a magneto-dynamo. Fanule h
ad once felt the machine’s vibrations through soiled walls and floors.

  The mere sight of that misnamed edifice gave Fanule a touch of nausea. He’d never be able to wash from his mind the images and sounds and smells of its sub-basement: the gray ceiling studded down the center with light bulbs ensnared in steel mesh (no, he’d never forget the light bulbs); the rows of cages against the walls; the cries that seemed to well up from a pooled stench of sweat… and worse.

  At least Mongrels no longer had to endure branding. Years ago, a vampire named Marrowbone threatened to drain dry every citizen of Purinton if the practice wasn’t stopped. In a rare instance of wisdom, civic leaders took his threat seriously. Marrowbone was known for his voracious appetite.

  Now Mongrels were inked, although the original designation branded still remained. The process was only slightly less painful. Instruments were crude and usually filthy, and their operators ranged from careless to sadistic. A 35:65 named Ansoria Crocaw had bled out on a gurney in the hallway after her carotid artery had been punctured. Nobody had tried to save her. Fanule had been there, in a stinking cage beneath the flickering lights, awaiting his turn beneath the needle.

  A prominent bump in the already bumpy road jounced aside Fanule’s ugly memories. He stopped to make sure he hadn’t hit some hapless animal. No more glances at the city. He proceeded to the southwest, looking now for the spider web that marked the overgrown path to Lizabetta’s cottage. Vegetation thickened and greened as he went on, and the air became clearer. Impulsively, he stopped to gather a small bouquet of lupine. In another ten minutes, he spied the immense web ahead on his right, stretched between two ash trees. Dew winked from its threads.

  Fanule stopped briefly, wondering if he should walk or ride the rest of the way. A breeze stirred the delicate grid without harming it. Serving as a marker, the web had been there since Lizabetta had taken up residence at the end of this path.

  Since Fanule still hadn’t shaken off the heaviness he’d felt earlier, he decided to ride.