Flesh Circus by Lilith Saintcrow Read Free Book Online Page B

pants, and frustrated enough
     to chew nails. I still managed.
    “I know what you do.” Gilberto dropped his hands. They dangled loosely, reminding me of the strangler-fingered Trader. “I
     want to do it, too.”
    I didn’t have to put any more bitterness into my laugh. It was already bitter enough. “Go home,
poquito.
Leave the night alone and don’t darken my door again.” I swept said door to and closed it in his face.
    No sound from the other side. None that you could hear with human ears, that is. I could still hear his heartbeat, pounding
     a little harder and faster now. Accelerated breathing, too.
    I’ll bet that didn’t go the way you thought it would.
I half-turned, and Saul stood close behind me, his hair mussed and high color blooming in his cheeks, one dark eyebrow elegantly
     lifted.
    I shrugged. “Hopefully he’ll go away. I’m going to hit the shower.”
    “What if he rings the bell again?”
    “Ignore him.” I swung past him, already planning out the rest of the night. “Want a snack before we head out again?”
    His broad shoulders dropped. “I’ll make you eggs.” He even managed to make that sound tentative. His hand twitched again,
     like he wanted to touch me, but he refrained.
    Why?
    You’ve got other problems, Jill. Just let him be. Be supportive, for once.
“Good deal. Thanks, sweetie.” I paced away, a little faster than I should have, trying not to feel like I was retreating.
    Now
that
was a losing battle.

5

    A very’s desk always looked about to disappear under a mound of paper and ranks of liquor bottles. He’d stuck slim candles into
     bottle mouths, some burned down and others pristine, though I never saw a burning one. If he ever lit them up, it was probably
     when he was alone.
    Cops aren’t supposed to drink on duty, but exorcists get a little bit of leeway. However, Ave didn’t immediately reach for
     the mini-fridge under his desk to get me a beer, and that was odd.
    The tiled passageway behind me resounded with faint echoes from the downtown jail above. Here, at the very bottom, the long
     corridor terminated in Ave’s office and three rooms, each barred with cold iron. Each with a circle carved into the concrete
     floor to hold victims hosting a Possessor—or those who had been cleaned out but had to be protected from the demon coming
back
to crawl right in and set up housekeeping.
    He handed over the file. “This is seriously weird.”
    When isn’t it?
I rolled my shoulders back in their sockets, my coat creaking a little. “What’s weird? Where’s our boy?”
    “He’s the winner in Room One. Didn’t flinch at the circle or anything. Didn’t even know he was awake until I peeked in the
     porthole about an hour ago, when I finally got the file all together. There’s some headshots in there too. He has a record.”
    I flipped it open and took a look. A couple of drug arrests, one breaking and entering dismissed with time served, and nothing
     for the last three years. Emilio Ricardo, thirty-six, brown and brown, employed halfway across town at a Mexican restaurant.
     Avery had even, bless his thoroughgoing little heart, pulled his recent renewal of a food-handler’s card. “Huh.”
    “Yeah. The address on his food permit isn’t the place on Silverado where I found him.” Avery scratched at his forehead under
     a flop of brown hair. “It just tingled too funny. I got called in by a patrol car—they’d gone in for a domestic disturbance
     in the same apartment building and ended up hearing this guy screaming. Couldn’t break the door down, and one of them—Jughead
     Vanner, you know, blond kid, looks like an advertisement for Clairol—radioed me in. He said it made him feel hinky.”
    That’s odd.
“Poor Jughead. You know he came across a Trader a couple months ago?”
    Ave’s sleepy smile bloomed. “He told me. Not in so many words, but… he wanted nothing to do with anything weird. I had to
     jiggle the door to get it open, and the