Circus of Marvels Read online

  “What? Not now, please not now!” he cried.

  And then he felt it, rasping breath down the back of his neck and a warm droplet of wolf-spittle. No nightmare had ever come close to this.

  “Grrrrr.”

  And then the hatch flew open and Benissimo’s arm yanked him on to the flight deck. He dropped down into a room full of levers and blinking coloured lights. Ned scrambled to his feet as Benissimo tried unsuccessfully to lock the hatch again, but there was no time. The door flew back open.

  Ned and the Ringmaster faced the wolf-thing, their backs pressed up against the airship’s controls. The creature drew closer, easing its way through the bulkhead’s hatch.

  “Easy, boy, stay still and steady,” said Benissimo, and something in his voice managed to soothe not only Ned, but also the drooling wolf-thing in front of them.

  The creature calmed for a moment, cocking its head to one side and sniffing at Ned, its terrible eyes scowling with confusion. Then Benissimo whistled a note through his teeth and the wolf-thing spun in his direction. Ned finally understood why his father might have trusted him, though Ned wondered if he was being protected for his own sake, or for the deposit box that he was supposed to open.

  The Ringmaster’s hand reached for a switch and he spoke from the corner of his mouth to a small tube in the wall. As he did so, his whip began to unfurl itself and creep towards the wolf-thing’s ankle.

  “Benissimo to head of security. You may well have noticed by now but your company is required.”

  The wolf-thing’s arm suddenly tore out at him and Benissimo’s shirt ripped open. Then the beast became still, but it was not the sight of Benissimo’s flesh that sent it into a drooling trance. Its eyes were fixed on the leather pouch around the Ringmaster’s neck, the pouch that held Ned’s blood-key.

  “Get down, boy!” Benissimo ordered, his whip suddenly tightening at the monster’s ankle.

  As it did so, security arrived in a blur that was Mystero – the escape artist Ned had seen in the show in Grittlesby. Benissimo’s number two dived straight through the hatch and flew towards the beast. Though its ankle was pinned, it turned in time to let loose its claws. But where they should have connected with flesh, they found only air and came crashing down on a bank of switches. Mystero meanwhile was reforming himself beside the beast, from wispy tendrils of mist. Even in his terror, Ned could hear the Tinker’s words: “There are also those who look completely human and are, well … not.” Benissimo’s head of security was clearly a “not”.

  The monster aimed his next attack straight at Benissimo. As he did so, one of his legs swung out fast, smashing the main console violently and knocking Ned into Marilyn’s flight stick. The airship veered hard right and a voice came in over the intercom.

  “This is the Leonora! Watch your starboard! I repeat: WATCH YOUR STARBOARD!”

  Ned looked on in horror as the Marilyn swayed at pace towards another airship in the convoy.

  The beast now had Benissimo by the throat, but the Ringmaster was keeping his calm, as though the claws at his windpipe were just a minor annoyance, but probably more because his able number two was making ready to strike.

  “Bring her steady, boy,” the Ringmaster managed to gasp.

  Ned would have loved to, except …

  “Err, HOW?”

  “Pull the flight stick to its centre, straighten her up. She won’t like it, so pull hard.”

  Ned shoved with all of his might to bring the Marilyn about. She moved slowly, three hundred tonnes of air-borne metal fighting both her own momentum and a heavy wind. She wasn’t straightening fast enough, they were going to …

  Crash!

  Ned watched appalled as the Marilyn’s starboard side brushed the other ship, leaving her tangled with the Leonora’s rigging.

  For a second, the fight stopped and Benissimo broke free. His whip was out of his hand and moved with a will all of its own, holding both of the beast’s legs together. The wolf-thing struck out wildly. But as fast as the beast was, it was no match for the Circus of Marvels’ head of security. It screeched with frustration as its claws lashed out and cut through … nothing, as though he were mist. He was mist. Spinning around the creature, Mystero’s face reformed again as a blur of angry tendrils growling at the monster furiously. The creature whimpered, and Benissimo landed a powerful blow. The monster fell to the ground, exhausted and breathless. The two men pounced, quickly grabbing at its arms and pinning them down.

  “Eagle Eye to Marilyn, Eagle Eye to Marilyn, over!” came another voice over the intercom.

  “This had best be of considerable significance, Eagle Eye, we’re a little tied up at the minute,” seethed Benissimo.

  “BOEING!” screamed back the lookout. “BOEEEEEEING!”

  Which was when they saw a large white shape ahead of them, its red lights blinking.

  “Someone must have messed with the flight plans! The red button, boy … hit the red button,” yelled Benissimo, his composure broken for the first time that day.

  Ned was still battling Marilyn’s flight stick, trying to keep them on course.

  “Red button or bring her steady?” he yelped.

  “BUTTON!”

  The main console had been significantly damaged by the beast’s attack. There were hundreds of buttons, many of which were broken. The largest and reddest by far would have been covered by a glass dome, were the dome not now in shattered pieces. At its base, embossed in metal, were the words: ‘Ringmaster ONLY’.

  “Do you mean this—”

  “Get on with it!”

  Ned pushed it, he pulled it, he even tried punching it, but the button was completely stuck and would not budge. “It’s broken!” he yelled, but the Ringmaster and his sidekick were too busy trying to hold the still-bristling beast to help. Ned flicked his eyes upwards to see the Boeing approaching at considerable speed. “Think,” he muttered to himself, “what would Dad do?” It was just a button; what mattered was beneath it. He looked at its base and saw a brass ring that fastened the red plastic to the console. He tried turning it clockwise, nothing. He tried again anti-clockwise and … it unscrewed in his hand. A second later the ring was off and he’d yanked the faulty button out of its hole, revealing a metal strip beneath it.

  “I think I’ve found the contact strip!”

  “WELL PUSH THE BLASTED THING THEN!” roared Benissimo.

  Ned did as he was told. He pushed the strip.

  Then, as every single one of the Circus of Marvels’ airships dropped out of the sky simultaneously, and the ground rushed up to meet them, Ned suddenly found himself pinned to the roof of the flight deck, along with Mystero, Benissimo and the wolf-thing.

  “Is this supposed to happen?” he shouted.

  “No, there are secondary inflation devices that should have kicked in, something’s gone wrong!” shouted back the Ringmaster. ‘Miz, can you do anything?”

  Ned didn’t wait for a response, instead he did what any thirteen-year-old boy, especially one with a profound fear of heights, would do – and screamed.

  ***

  Pilot John Rickerson was going to enjoy his retirement. He was making his final long-haul trip from Rome to New York and couldn’t wait to get home. The 747 was on autopilot, the weather was fine and he had little to do other than daydream about his wife’s blueberry pie. It came as a slight shock then when the onboard radar starting flashing uncontrollably and an elephant flew by his window.

  “Holy cow!” he cried, spitting coffee across the dashboard.

  The elephant was strange but not nearly as strange as the pink bus hurtling past his port side, and he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of an old lady on board sipping tea. He slammed on the air brakes, narrowly missing a merry-go-round and then, just as quickly as it had arrived, it had gone again, leaving nothing but a clear night sky in its wake and the slightest notion of mist. His long-standing co-pilot Hank burst in through the cabin door.

  “What the heck’s going on,
John? I was in the toilet!”

  The sudden application of air brakes had caused him to wee down the front of his trousers and he was not happy. John, on the other hand, was in a world of his own.

  “I just saw … the circus.”

  “John? John, are you OK?”

  Mystero the Magnificent

  When Ned woke again he was still on the flight deck, and felt hugely relieved to be awake at all. The Marilyn’s secondary inflation devices had kicked in just in the nick of time, saving them from a crash landing, but not saving Ned’s face from making a very sudden and painful acquaintance with the floor. While he was out, someone had obviously taken pity on him and moved him into one of the flight deck’s chairs. Now he lay still, listening to the conversation that was taking place around him.

  “I had a bad feeling about this from the start,” said Mystero, trying to keep his voice down.

  “You’ve a bad feeling about everything, Miz. It’s part of your glum-faced charm,” responded Benissimo dismissively.

  “Well, I was right. We could have lost the whole convoy. Someone helped the beast out of its cage and it had clearly been given his scent.”

  “The weir was snouting for the boy’s blood-key, not his actual blood.”

  “What about the Boeing? The altered flight path? If they prove anything it’s that they’ll kill all of us to get at him.”

  “Look, this isn’t what we planned and I don’t like it any more than you do, but he’s all we’ve got.” Benissimo paused. “Having said that, did you see how resourceful he was with the console? It would suggest a modicum of … something about him …”

  Ned started to feel bad about eavesdropping and decided it might be time to let them know he was awake.

  “Oww …” he said, rubbing his head.

  “Sleeping Beauty awakens,” said Benissimo, quickly motioning to Mystero that their conversation had come to an end.

  But Ned had heard it all. Yes, his life was in danger – this much he knew already – but at least he had earned a scrap of Benissimo’s respect.

  As he sat up, the bruise on his head started to throb.

  “So what happened to ‘as safe as a ruby in a crown’?” said Ned with a small smile.

  “Well, we’re all still here, aren’t we? No thanks to you. If you’d done as you were told and stayed in your bunk, George would have dealt with the beast before my Marilyn got damaged,” said Benissimo sternly, straightening his top hat.

  “Well, if you’d told me there was a giant dog-thing walking the corridors I would have quite happily peed in my bed!”

  “That’s quite enough, you two,” said Mystero kindly. “Ned did a great job on the release button, you said it yourself, Bene. If his fingers hadn’t been quite as nimble, well, this little adventure would already be over. You did just fine, Ned.”

  Mystero had a slightly clammy, though now solid face and was still wearing the dinner jacket and bow tie from his last performance in Grittlesby. Though well worn, every crease and button was in perfect order and the outfit suited his serious, sincere demeanour.

  “Shall we?” said Mystero, clearly communicating something to Benissimo.

  The Ringmaster nodded, and began to speak.

  “Ned, Mystero is a Mystral, an elemental force – capable of taking two forms. Part human and part air, hot air if you ask me, but a necessary sufferance. He’s saved our collective skin more times than I have toes and I trust no one more deeply with the safety of my troupe. He’s also the closest thing I’ll allow to a friend.”

  “What, you mean he actually likes you?” asked Ned.

  Benissimo raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth curled up ever so slightly. It wasn’t quite a smile, but something in its proximity.

  “I’m also an old friend of your father’s, Ned,” said Mystero.

  Ned winced, yet another part of his dad’s life that he knew nothing about.

  “I expect you know him a lot better than I do,” said Ned flatly.

  “Terrence is a good man, Ned, and as brave and selfless as any I know. I promised with Bene here to watch out for you, but I’m afraid we have ourselves a definite problem.”

  The mention of his dad being brave made Ned feel even more of a stranger. It was clearly something he was going to have to get used to.

  But now was not the time for hurt feelings; Mystero was trying to warn him about more serious matters.

  “Definite problem?”

  “The clowns that came to your house used to be ours; a bad decision on my part, I’m afraid. It would appear that the same people who want your father now want you. How they know about your blood-key is anyone’s guess, but the weir’s attack most assuredly proves it. They won’t stop, Ned, and there are plenty of worse things out there than last night’s weir.”

  Ned remembered the monster’s smell and shuddered.

  “That creature, the weir … it was a werewolf, wasn’t it?”

  “They’ve been given many names. The Vikings called them vargulfs or vargs and the Saxons warwoolfs. They are one of three types of shapeshifter. The wolf-pack, the bear-clan and the herd – the last of the great stags. At one time, they were powerful allies, till they lost control over their gifts and their condition forced us to put them in exile. Now they manage the wildlands beyond the Veil for us, in Siberia, and our other Darkling reserves.”

  “That thing was on your side?”

  “Darklings and especially Demons cannot cross the Veil into your world without help, but they can roam behind it. The weirs monitor the Darklings’ behaviour and alert us to their movements. In some ways they’re like wardens in a jail, only quite often as dangerous as the inmates they’re trying to control.”

  “Siberia’s in Russia. What was this one doing in France?”

  “It won’t talk. Weirs are two parts magic, one part rage, almost impossible to frighten. Yet the forces that put this one in our path have scared it out of its mind. What we do know is, our best attempts to keep you a secret have already failed, which makes my job that much harder. By now the troupe will have guessed you’re not a regular runaway. When we get to Shalazaar, you and Benissimo will go into the city alone and in disguise. I’ll be going in with one of the younger Tortellini boys and some others to try and take them off your scent. He doesn’t look much like you, but I’m banking on the clowns not having had a proper look at your face.”

  Ned was horrified. Until this precise moment, he’d thought there was still just the slimmest chance he’d gone mad. That this new world of monsters and blood-keys wasn’t really real. But he hadn’t gone mad. His father really was mixed up in this and, Engineer or not, how could his dear old telly-addict dad protect himself? He might well have been brave in his past life, but he didn’t have a Mystero or whip-wielding Ringmaster onside. The dad he knew could barely walk to the shops without breaking into a sweat. As Ned’s stomach knotted with worry, the intercom crackled.

  “Eagle Eye to Marilyn over?”

  “This is Marilyn, Eagle Eye,” responded Benissimo.

  “Approaching Veil aerospace, boss. We’re home.”

  At the word ‘home’ the Ringmaster visibly changed. His rough exterior became softer and his eyes a little more bright.

  As he slowed Marilyn’s engines for arrival, Benissimo motioned for Ned to come and sit by him.

  “Now, pup, you get to see what all the fuss is about; what it is that I’m trying to protect. You never forget your first crossing. Here, pass your eye through my spyglass.”

  Ned peered through the spyglass. The entire view was a blanket of thick billowing grey.

  “But it’s just fog, lots and lots of fog.”

  “Is it?”

  Slightly lower than the rest of the convoy and far up ahead, was a much smaller airship. Thick plumes of what looked like steam were billowing out from underneath it. Ned twisted the spyglass by his eye and focused it on the airship’s lower cabin. Through the porthole he saw the two Guffstavson brothers, wh
o had lit light bulbs in their mouths back in Grittlesby. They were both red-faced and angry. Sparks of electricity flew between them and were gathered up by brass rods that were in turn linked to a generator. The angrier they became, the larger the sparks of electricity, and in turn the more fog that their ship produced.

  “That is nuts,” said a stunned Ned.

  “No, boy, that is the foginator. This is nuts,” he turned to the intercom. “Bene to engine rooms – all stop.”

  The foginator let out a final puff and its propellers stopped spinning. As the sky cleared, Ned’s nostrils filled with the smell of strawberry ice cream and burnt caramel. The sounds from the Marilyn’s slowing engine began to stretch and blur. Above the convoy, he saw a flock of birds. The birds were flying backwards.

  “Those birds … they shouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “No, they shouldn’t. But we’re at the border, one of many. When magic and non-magic meet, reality bends. I’ve seen kettles make jugs of ice and rivers flow backwards. It’s never the same thing twice,” explained Benissimo proudly. “What might look like a lonely wood, or a calm sea, eventually gives way to … what lies behind the Veil.”

  As Benissimo said it, Ned had a strong sense of … something. They’d ‘crossed’. He looked down but all he could see was miles and miles of golden sand. Then shapes started to bend up from the flat expanse, till they became clearer, more solid – walls, buildings, towers. The forming mirage of light and shadow gradually grew into a city. Ned knew from his talk with George what this must be – the desert city of Shalazaar, the city behind the Veil. In its middle lay the Shar’s palace. It was ivory white and bore a huge flag carrying his insignia: a set of measuring scales with a two-headed cobra wrapped around its centre.

  Ned stared in wonder at the city beneath him, which was unlike any he had seen before. Gothic church spires stood beside ancient mosques and Greek temples. Every surface bulged with giant statues of forgotten gods and unknown kings. Some parts of the city were industrial, huge constructs of iron and steel that spilled out over the old, wrapping themselves around crumbling buildings and broken walls, too ancient to fend for themselves. European architecture fused with Chinese, Japanese with Arabic, as though someone had taken mankind’s best efforts and melted them into one. Flying machines whirred over its rooftops, steam-powered vehicles puffed along its streets and Ned even spotted a man on the back of an ostrich. Strangest of all was the sight of people riding other people. Small men in top hats on the backs of great hulking brutes, and, in contrast, huge women laid out on stretchers, being carried by up to a dozen tiny men.