Authors: Lynde Lakes
One of rescue crew shouted. “Dear Jesus. My dart
gun’s empty.”
“Mine too,” Tigra screamed, panic in her voice.
Bloody hell, Rolo thought, someone had sabotaged
their act.
The tiger hung on. As Candy shook Rolo, he felt his
blood splatter over his bare chest like rain. Candy’s teeth sank deeper into
his throat, ripping, tearing and then blessed blackness….
****
Tigra knew her tigers well and was positive gentle
Candy wouldn’t attack without good reason. The Circus vet came on the run. He
tested the blood of the immobilized, downed tiger and confirmed Candy had been
drugged. Later at the hospital, tests on the contents of Rolo’s stomach proved
he had been drugged too. “Dear God, please allow Rolo to survive the attack and
let the results of those tests keep Candy safe from the authorities’ bullets.”
Chapter
Two
Hugo Marshall Hall, alias Hugh, raked his midnight
black hair. Cursed by a lycanthropy gene, he’d been in crisis since the day he
was born and the sense of chaos increased by leaps and bounds each day. As he
finished his breakfast with his brother, Damon, a new wave of loneliness crept
into his senses. He’d been a loner most of his life. Of course he had Damon and
Damon’s family, but he craved to carve out a special Shangri-La in the world
for himself and, if very fortunate, find love.
He poured himself and his brother another cup of
coffee and studied the classified job ads. “Hey, here is something
interesting.” He read the circus ad aloud to Damon twice. He grinned as
adrenalin shot through him. “It offers a recently vacated job with room, board,
and paid world travel.”
Damon frowned. “Recently vacated, hmmm… Does the ad
say why?”
“It’s an ad for a job, not a full history of the
position. The point is—it offers travel and adventure.”
“Haven’t you had enough adventure in your life?”
“Not the right kind.”
“True. And I get why it sounds promising to you. But
don’t leap into anything without checking it out thoroughly. And watch out for
those hard-living circus women. They can eat a man alive.”
“Is there something about you I don’t know? Just how
many circus women have you known?”
“None.
Dammit. But I can imagine.”
Hugh shrugged and sighed. Damon’s concerns were
understandable. His brother believed he wore his heart on his sleeve and that
his kindness was his Achilles heel.
“I’ll be careful, but perhaps a circus is the
perfect place for me. Masquerading as a normal person is exhausting. Circus
people are expected to be different, so I just might fit in with the Big Top
family.”
A warmth
filled him
.
Family.
He craved one of his own.
Damon drained his coffee and then stared into his
cup. “You know we’ll miss you.”
“I
know,
bro. If only the
cure you struggled to perfect had worked on me, I could have some normalcy in
my life. But the way things are, I just don’t fit in here anymore. I need to meet
new people, spread my horizons, and maybe meet someone like Angela.”
“Good luck. There’s no one like Angela. She’s an
original.”
“I have to try.” The freeing of the curse which had
finally worked on Damon and his wife, Angela, was his only hope. It was love
.
Not just a general everyday love for
others, but a special man-woman kind of love with a daring willingness to give
up everything for one special soul mate. The evidence suggested the edict of
the prophesy was true because he loved Damon, his family, and the few friends
he been lucky enough to acquire since his resurrection, and he’d shown a
willingness to die for them. Yet those sacrifices hadn’t cured him.
“I’m as envious as hell of you, bro. I want what you
and Angela have.”
“I want that for you, too. The happiest times with
Angela are the simple moments when we walk down the lane together holding
hands. The intimacies of little things are the moments with the most meaning in
the long run.”
“Then you understand why I want to seek that full
heart experience for myself. Please, bro. Give me your blessings.”
Damon moved his empty cup out of the way, reached
over, and gave him a hug. “You have it. Just stay cautious. You’re a vulnerable
soul.”
“I know
that.” All of his life, death had lurked just around the corner. He wasn’t
afraid of dying; he knew what was on the other side and had learned the
benefits or lack thereof depended upon choices made while alive. It could be a
place of goodness and beauty, or a grave, dank subterranean purgatory of unending
emptiness; or for the truly evil, a fiery hell. “Just wish me luck. I’m ready
to find my own destiny.”
Damon bit his lip. “Good luck, Hugh. You deserve
it.” The catch in his brother’s voice sent a sense of loss through Hugh. But
this was something he had to do. If he got away from the secluded, imposing
mansion and his brother’s family for a while, he might increase his chances of
meeting a woman who was beyond his present limited sphere.
Damon tilted his head. “It isn’t that easy to find a
soul mate able to set your heart on fire.”
“But I have to try. And if a soul mate isn’t in my
near future, perhaps I can at least find an interesting companion and enjoy a
great adventure along the way.” Images of
far away
places flashed through his mind. He’d never traveled and would love to visit
all of those exciting places he’d read about since he’d first learned to read
at age five. What better way than with a traveling circus?
Chapter
Three
Vance Skull Kilman, aerialist, garbed in his usual
black performing attire, felt the walls of his caravan-trailer closing in on
him. He grabbed the edge of the kitchen sink counter to quiet his hands from
shaking. He glanced down at the obscure black cloak with the vibrant blood-red
lining thrown over the back of a chair and fought an urge to slip it around his
shoulders. As the lure grew stronger, he strode to the door and clasped the
handle. He let it go as though it was hot-wired. Only the circumstances of the
robbery kept him from dashing out into the misting darkness to find an
unsuspecting beauty to fulfill his needs. Softly, in the back ground, a CD
played “
I
Like
a
Gershwin Tune
.” The upbeat music didn’t soothe his lusting mood. He paced,
and then looked out the window at Tigra’s billboard. Why had he allowed her to
get into his blood, his wretched soul? Probably because she was the only woman
who consistently turned him down.
Why was he torturing himself? There were plenty of
women out there. For tonight, he must curb his carnal, desire. He had a nice
theft game going with the ever-moving circus and mustn’t let his lustful need
and thirst for revenge
blow it.
Business came first. That meant he had to keep his wits and relocate the solid
gold arrowhead he’d stolen from the San Bernardino County Museum last night to
a safe spot until the circus pulled up stakes in three weeks. To avoid
discovery, he had to hide his bounty before sun-up. By morning the grounds
could be crawling with police. When trouble went down in a town, the cops
always suspected the traveling gypsies who worked the Carney-Circus Circuit.
He glanced at the black raven perched on his swing.
“You’re the only one I trust with my secrets.” The bird blinked and stared at
him with beady eyes. Lance sometimes felt silly talking to a bird, but trusting
a human friend was impossible. He learned early on his every action had an
equally dramatic reaction and knew well the dangers of allowing a
co-conspirator to join his world of debauchery. It was safest to indulge in his
wild seductions alone. Intensity and concentration—traits he tried to conceal
under his cloak of darkness—were the vehicles of his convictions and his raven
Blacky would never reveal anything about him.
Vance leered down at the burlap bag and opened it
enough for Blacky to see inside. “This is my best acquisition since I joined
the circus five years ago,” he told the raven. “The piece was carved from pure
gold in the days of the gold rush by the wealthiest ranch owner in the area,
Arturo Lugo, Sepulveda. It’ll be worth a fortune in Europe. Hell, even the
insurance companies will offer a bundle to get it back.”
He closed the bag tightly and smiled his
long-toothed grin. The wooded Shandon Hills were a labyrinth of caves. He would
choose the most secluded one, hide his treasure and then when the circus pulled
up stakes to move on, he’d retrieve it and slip it out of town with the caravan
with no one the wiser. Once the treasure was hidden and secure, he could
satisfy his other needs—his craving for blood and passion.
Chapter
Four
Hugh sang a few bars of “
They Can’t Take That Away From Me
,” in an effort to shake his
gloomy mood. But it was too late; disconsolate thoughts had snuck up on him and
wrapped constricting tentacles around his soul like a venomous snake. It was
March, the month of his original birth. All day black clouds darkened the sky
and threatened rain. Many years ago, his mother had written in her journal that
it was a black day when, on the 25
th
day of March, he’d sucked in
his first screaming breath-of-air and was born an Aries crippled shadow in the
world. As he developed, his plight worsened beyond her fears. In manhood, he
ended up a hunchback who frightened women, children, and became a whipping dog
for men.
After his other half-brother, Reeves, also a
werewolf, ripped out his throat, a golden-haired angel resurrected him and
granted him a new life and a new muscled body.
“You’re now equal to any man,” she whispered in her
silvery voice. “You’re ageless, and will never look over thirty.”
At the time, looks didn’t matter to him. His concern
was the Lamont curse—he and his brothers were cursed with the lycanthropy gene
and strong lycanthropic impulses.
“You are not a vampire,” the angel had told him.
“Rather than feeding on blood, you will gain your life force or chi from good
deeds.”
He liked the idea of being reborn to help others. It
came natural to him.
“The down-side,” the angel confided, “is you’re
still a werewolf and only you have the power to cure your plight.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“In time, if you stay on the right path, it will be
revealed to you,” she said and then floated upward and disappeared into the
clouds.
He’d learned to accept what he couldn’t change. His
journey was difficult, but never boring. In the past, during the years he was a
hated and feared hunchback, his mother and his half-brother, Damon, showed the
kind of the sincere compassion and validation which made his life bearable. In
gratitude, he assisted his mother until she died; then he dedicated his life to
Damon, serving him in whatever capacity he could in exchange for a home. Damon
showed him undying kindness.
Hugh sighed. For
years his goal had centered on protecting Damon and his family from the deadly
assaults from brother Reeves and other evil beings. But all that was in the
past. His job as protector was no longer needed. It was time to look forward
into the unknown future and find his
place
in this complicated world.
As he moved closer to his destination, the misting, dark
sky brightened slightly. The circus had tied down on the flat acreage of vacant
land adjacent to the Shandon Foothills, on the outskirts of the city of San
Bernardino under the shadow of the Arrowhead Springs Hotel.
A twinge of excitement shot through him. The
traveling circus would be moving on soon to Scotland, and he could barely wait
to visit the country with its brooding castles, wooded hills, snaking rivers,
and misty mountain peaks.
Hugh’s eager steps were muted by his
Indian moccasins. Like
the wolf in him, he preferred to move swiftly and silently through his environment.
He glanced up at the sky again. Its
misting, moonless darkness was a troublesome tradition for the circus. The day
the extravaganza came to town rain would follow. According to the newspapers,
in the past, management had tried an April opening and still the rain came and
almost drowned them out.
The moonless grayness worked for him. It lessened
his call of the night and his propensity to roam the hills
.
This evening he
had to
tend to business. He needed a job—this job. The ever-moving circus and it’s bounty
of animals seemed the perfect solution.
He had the
expertise circus-management needed and he’d worn his tool belt to impress the
bosses. It now swayed against his hip with each step.
Hugh smiled. He
loved animals and children and wouldn’t mind trying
out for a trainer or clown position. An urge rose in him to tackle anything and
everything. He could handle it all; abilities gained through difficulties and
inner-growth gave the kind of training no one could take away. He sighed. The
truth was—he’d accept any job he could get. As he approached the lively
confusion of the circus grounds, with its brilliantly lighted Ferris wheel, his
heart beat faster. Exciting merry-go-round calliope music blared from the
arcade along with the happy tunes from the tilt-a-whirl and other rides. With
the carnival-circus-setup, jobs should be plentiful.