Circus of the Damned by Laurell K. Hamilton Read Free Book Online

loss long before the poison kicked in.
    Something was growing in the middle of that ring. Magic crawled up my spine. Was it magic that kept the snake safe, or magic that called it up, or was it the snake itself? Did it have power all its own? I didn’t even know what to call it. It looked like a cobra, perhaps the world’s biggest, yet I didn’t even have a word for it. God with a little “g” would do, but it wasn’t accurate.
    I shook my head and turned away. I didn’t want to see the show. I didn’t want to stand there with its magic flowing soft and cold over my skin. If the snake wasn’t safe, Jean-Claude would have had it caged, right? Right.
    I turned away from the snake charmer and the world’s biggest cobra. I wanted to talk to Jean-Claude and get the hell out of here.
    The open door was filled with darkness. Vampires didn’t need lights. Did lycanthropes? I didn’t know. Gee, so much to learn. My jacket was unzipped all the way, the better for a fast draw. Though truthfully, if I needed a fast draw tonight, I was in deep shit.
    I took a deep breath and let it out. No sense putting it off. I walked through the door into the waiting darkness without looking back. I didn’t want to see what was happening in the ring. Truth was, I didn’t want to see what was behind the darkness. Was there another choice? Probably not.

6
    T HE ROOM WAS LIKE a closet with drapes all the way around. There was no one in the curtained darkness but me. Where had Stephen gone? If he had been a vampire, I would have believed the vanishing act, but lycanthropes don’t just turn into thin air. So, there had to be a second door.
    If I had built this room, where would I put an inner door? Answer: opposite the first door. I swept the drapes aside. The door was there. Elementary, my dear Watson.
    The door was heavy wood with some flowering vine carved into it. The doorknob was white with tiny pink flowers in the center of it. It was an awfully feminine door. Of course, no rules against men liking flowers. None at all. It was a sexist comment. Forget I thought it.
    I did not draw my gun. See, I’m not completely paranoid.
    I turned the doorknob and swung the door inward. I kept pushing until it was flush against the wall. No one was hiding behind it. Good.
    The wallpaper was off-white with thin silver, gold, and copper designs running through it. The effect was vaguely oriental. The carpeting was black. I didn’t even know carpet came in that color. A canopy bed took up most of one side of the room. Black, gauzy curtains covered it. Made the bed indistinct, misty, like a dream. There was someone asleep in a nest of black covers and crimson sheets. A line of bare chest showedit was a man, but a wave of brown hair covered his face like a shroud. It all looked faintly unreal, as if he was waiting for movie cameras to roll.
    A black couch was against the far wall, with blood-red pillows thrown along it. A matching love seat was against the last wall. Stephen was curled up on the love seat. Jean-Claude sat on one corner of the couch. He wore black jeans tucked into knee-high leather boots, dyed a deep, almost velvet black. His shirt had a high lace collar pinned at the neck by a thumb-size ruby pendant. His black hair was just long enough to curl around the lace. The sleeves were loose and billowing, tight at the wrists with lace spilling over his hands until only his fingertips showed.
    â€œWhere do you get your shirts?” I asked.
    He smiled. “Don’t you like it?” His hands caressed down his chest, fingertips hesitating over his nipples. It was an invitation. I could touch that smooth white cloth and see if the lace was as soft as it looked.
    I shook my head. Mustn’t get distracted. I glanced at Jean-Claude. He was staring at me with those midnight blue eyes. His eyelashes were like black lace.
    â€œShe wants you, Master,” Stephen said. There was laughter