Carousel Read online

  Madoc held out her panties from his finger. Good as new.

  “That’s useful. Thank you.” Really, could this day get any stranger?

  She shouldn’t have thought it loud enough for him to hear, because when she pulled her underwear over her legs, the wetness on her nipples and between her legs disappeared, leaving her as comfortable as though her encounter with the clowns had never happened.

  Caroline pushed her skirt back down then pulled her corset up over her breasts again. Madoc hadn’t made the place where the wire had pushed into her skin stop hurting. Caroline didn’t mind. It told her she hadn’t been hallucinating, although she might have lost her mind.

  She wrapped her arms around her legs. Madoc just waited, not pressuring her to get to the carousel to resume business as usual.

  “Is that why you hired me for Arcanium?” Caroline finally asked. “Because of how much I’m like Tragedy?”

  “My dear, you’re practically begging for me to take advantage of the metaphor,” Madoc said. “The answer is no. It’s an amusing coincidence. I hired you because you wanted to be a part of us. I like it when people want to be a part of Arcanium. I know it was a whim, a whim that you didn’t expect would yield any fruit. But you came to me anyway. You asked, even though you were afraid. And though you’re angry at me for my necessary deception, you still serve my carousel to the best of your ability. What more could I have ever required of you than what you are and what you’ve done?”

  He tilted her chin up. She wasn’t the psychic one, but she knew what he was going to do as he leaned in. She could have stopped him. She didn’t.

  Of all the things that the clowns had offered to her, one of the few things that they couldn’t was a kiss.

  After everything that had happened, the kiss could have been an afterthought, a forgotten sigh at the end of the climax, but it wasn’t. His lips on hers were soft. The kiss, closed and uninsistent, was almost chaste, but not quite. He lingered, caressing her, stealing her breath before she knew how powerful the gesture was. Madoc spoke in riddles, but he kissed without mystery. Caroline was the one who had to break the kiss. It was too undiluted, too much honesty all at once, as though he had for the moment stripped away his mask for her as so many other demons in Arcanium already had.

  When she pulled back, he was still Madoc, the fortune teller, the puppetmaster behind the curtain—and to her eyes, just a man.

  “You should go,” Madoc said, slowly releasing her. “Geoff will have the pretzel you wanted ready on the carousel. The gates are opening any minute now, and I have to return to my tent.”

  When he stood from the chaise, he made no attempt to conceal the level of his arousal. Caroline had no way of knowing whether he had been like that before or after the kiss, but he appeared unaffected by it. Caroline didn’t offer to relieve him. She was sure he understood why.

  Demon clowns, an ex-demon and a man trying to atone, these were people she could yield herself to and people she could take. They were flesh and blood, down-to-earth real to her. They were grit and nail scratches and good new wood, solid, carnal, comprehensible, accessible.

  From just a kiss, Madoc was not. He was so much more, so much bigger, she couldn’t hope to hold him down without him crushing her, couldn’t hold onto him without being taken somewhere she didn’t know she could survive. The scariest part was that she didn’t know whether it was good or evil. Just that it was powerful beyond her measure.

  The new rumble of fear she felt kissing him didn’t mean it wasn’t nice—more than nice—only that she was out of her depth. The fact he liked her didn’t change that. It was a great and terrible honor. Caroline saw that now.

  And her respect for Maya had just gone up a couple of thousand points.

  He helped her to her feet from the chaise then led her with a warm hand on her back to the exit.

  Caroline blushed again when she heard the big cats in their cages. They had seen everything. But then she thought of what more they had seen backstage because everyone ignored them when they were in animal skin.

  “Sir?” Caroline said. “Not that I’m not grateful, but can you tell Tragedy to run all future gifts through you first?”

  Madoc looked away but couldn’t quite hide his mirth. “Yes.”

  * * * *

  Caroline lay with Riley in her cabin. She didn’t know where Colm had run off to, especially since she’d thought that after last night he’d warmed up to her, but he’d disappeared almost as soon as he’d emerged from his place on the carousel. She was a little hurt, but maybe the man needed some alone time to think. Caroline had her own heavy thoughts to process. She thought it best to let him alone, no matter what bug was up his butt.

  Even though on a personal level she wished Colm had stayed, physically Caroline was glad she’d only had Riley to satisfy and to satisfy her. After the clowns that afternoon, she didn’t know whether she could take two again. The sex demons could make her as horny as they wanted, but without any additional magic, a girl still had her limits.

  She had to say, though, Riley was showing more initiative than before. She would have thought that after the terror the clowns had unintentionally put her through, Caroline wouldn’t have wanted to be approached so aggressively. But underneath the surface roughness Riley had demonstrated, he hadn’t quite been able to overcome his meeker disposition. He could pretend, and they could both enjoy it, but Riley just didn’t scare her.

  Caroline couldn’t imagine someone like him willingly risking lives through arson because he didn’t value the lives of the strange ones inside. Four or five years spent as a mount on the carousel must have truly changed him. Or maybe he hadn’t been that terrible of a person in the past—groups sometimes brought out the worst in a decent person. Whatever the cause of who he had been and who he was now, she felt completely safe in his arms, letting the air conditioning dry the light sweat off their skin as their breathing slowed.

  He closed his eyes and dozed lightly, but Caroline, who should have been exhausted from everything that had happened that day, was a little wired. She crawled from the bed to her bag for her tablet. She settled against the wall bed cushion, her bare skin bathed in the cold blue light.

  She had called her university earlier that week to let them know she was taking some time off. Caroline thought about messaging her groups of friends to let them know too. But every time she went to contact them, she kept having the pervasive sense that she’d be a disappointment, as though she were dropping out or freaking out instead of taking time off to work through her wished servitude to an ambiguously moral jinni.

  It was one thing for her father to threaten to kick her out. She had to leave the nest at some point. But for her friends to wash their hands of her because they thought she was flaky or shallow mortified her. They hadn’t done it yet or anything. In fact, Kari had posted on her wall asking why she’d been so quiet, and Mickey had asked if she wanted to get a cup of coffee while he was visiting another friend in Caroline’s hometown.

  But she couldn’t shake the fear that keeping her as a friend would just be too much trouble, that not being able to settle in one place had made her disposable because she hadn’t made strong enough attachments.

  She still couldn’t tell them.

  She logged off Facebook and went to email.

  Her father had written her back.

  “Oh crap,” Caroline whispered. She got up so quickly that she startled Riley out of sleep. He jerked awake as she scrambled to get some clothes on.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. He scratched his chest and watched her, bemused.

  “I need to talk to Madoc,” she said. She didn’t bother with a bra or pants. Her panties and shirt would be enough in the dark, especially since Madoc had seen more of her by now. It was a little late to be modest. “I’ll be back, but it’s an emergency. Sorry.”

  She took a moment to kiss him then climbed out of the cabin and ran barefoot to the caravan.

  Caroline paused when
she noticed the RV was rocking.

  Was this really such an emergency that she needed to interrupt, or could she wait until they were finished? She didn’t know how long that would take. She thought Madoc needed to know about this now, but ‘now’ was within the hour, not right this second. She stood in front of the door, unsure how to proceed or what to do with herself. It wasn’t like they had a chair outside for someone to wait, and it was awkward for her to just stand there watching the RV shake.

  The rocking stopped, although Caroline hadn’t heard anything to indicate a definitive end to their activities. The door opened. Madoc wore a pair of cotton trousers, and his hair was tousled. Caroline didn’t feel right seeing him this unsettled. It was as though she were seeing him naked. Maya came up behind him in the living area with a sheet wrapped around her.

  “What’s wrong?” Maya asked.

  “I wasn’t going to interrupt,” Caroline said.

  Madoc shook his head. “I could sense that your purpose for being here was urgent. It’s okay.” He held out his hand for the tablet. She gave it to him without another word.

  Caroline,

  Enough is enough. I tried to be patient. I tried to give you whatever space you think you need, in spite of the fact that I’ve been more than accommodating. But I think it’s high time you stopped being so childish. What I ask from you is perfectly reasonable, not some Herculean task or cruel abuse that necessitates something as extreme as running away from home.

  I’m going to be rational and hope you were kidding about joining a circus and that you’re hiding out with one of your little friends somewhere. If you make me look for you, I will go to the police and form a search party. I am not above embarrassing you, missy. But if you really did go and join a circus, I’m horrified that you would do this to your mother.

  I’ve checked the circus’s schedule online. If you’re really there, I will be coming to get you there on Sunday, and you should thank your lucky stars that you’re too old to spank. I can guarantee there will be a car titled in my name that you won’t get to drive again until you’re mature enough for me to sign it over to you. You are not leaving school, and you will come home and grow up for once in your life. You’re not a teenager anymore. If you want me to treat you like an adult, start acting like one.

  Dad

  “Well, that’s inconvenient,” Madoc muttered. He handed the tablet back to her. “Not insurmountable. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention as soon as you received it. I understand your concern, but it’s not something that you need to worry about.”

  “But he’s coming. Here. He’s coming here to make a scene and yell at me in front of strangers and possibly drag me out by my hair before he cuts it off with his electric razor,” Caroline said.

  “Really?” Maya asked, a little shocked.

  “No, I’m exaggerating about the dragging me out by my hair and shaving it off. Maybe not on that last part. I don’t know. All I know is that he’ll try to take me away.”

  “And neither you nor I will let him,” Madoc said. “He’s just one man, Caroline.”

  “I don’t want you to hurt him!” Caroline exclaimed, panicking.

  “We will remove him from the circus legally. If he insists on making a spectacle of taking you away, we will make a spectacle of kicking him out, but it is in Arcanium’s best interest to avoid legal attention. As long as he doesn’t harm you, we will not have to pass retribution,” Madoc said. “He’s just being your father. I don’t believe he’ll harm you to try to save you, no matter how little he thinks of you.”

  Caroline lowered her head.

  “Bell,” Maya murmured.

  “You’re his daughter,” Madoc said, lifting Caroline’s chin. “You will ever be his child. He thinks little of you because you are still little to him. We will take care of this. Okay? He will not make you break your promise to me. Only you can do that.”

  Caroline nodded. “Sorry to bother you,” she said, addressing both Madoc and Maya.

  “You didn’t,” Madoc replied. “You did exactly what you should have done. You did well.”

  Caroline bit her lip, remembering the kiss. He inclined his head to her as he gently closed the door.

  She didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but she dreaded it. She dreaded her father seeing her here. Causing a scene. Returning her to the time when she’d been three feet tall, back when carousels had been something much simpler.

  * * * *

  Caroline supposed she could count herself lucky that he hadn’t invaded Arcanium on a day when she wore the kinky leather dress. The steampunk corset wasn’t the most revealing thing she’d ever worn, and the skirt covered her legs to her knees, but there was no mistaking the exhibitionist intent behind the design, which would explain her father’s state of apoplexy when he got onto the carousel and saw her in the cage.

  There was a reason she’d saved the more salacious of her Halloween costumes for when she’d gone to college. Her father had been disapproving that her prom dress had been strapless. He would have lost his mind if it had been a sweetheart neckline like her corset today.

  “Caroline Marie Barrett, you are putting on a jacket and coming with me right now,” her dad said. He kept his voice down, loud-whispering through the brass gears of the cage. The laughing and talking around them drowned his barely contained fury from the rest of the riders, but Caroline heard it loud and clear.

  “No,” she replied. She wished she could properly lock the cage, but the lock was mostly for show, since a person could just reach through and undo it if they wanted to. She could, however, make it harder for him to do so.

  She started one of the programs, and the ground beneath her father’s feet moved him away from where he had been holding onto the gears.

  “That is not funny,” her dad said, stumbling before grabbing onto the poles of one of the horses—with the one with the alligator tail and face.

  “I’m just doing my job,” Caroline said. “You know, the one you insisted I get?”

  “Joining the circus is not finding a job.”

  “They were the only ones who took me in. The application’s been accepted and the contract’s been signed. The job is secure. I’m getting paid. What more do you want?”

  “You just didn’t try hard enough,” her dad said. “I made it a little too comfortable for you to stay home and watch the TV that I pay for all day, eating the things that your mother buys, using the allowance we’ve given you for years to buy your luxury coffees and laze around with your friends when you should have been pounding the pavement. When I was your age, I was working and going to school in the summer. I worked my ass off to get to where I am. I guess that’s the price of upward mobility. The next generation doesn’t understand what it takes.”

  “I don’t know whether you noticed, Dad, but I was barely able to find jobs back in high school, and they all seemed to dry up when I went to college. I tried, okay? You weren’t there. I drank those luxury coffees while I was walking through outlet after outlet, mall after mall, getting carpal tunnel syndrome from filling out applications.”

  Now that the program had started, she didn’t need to do anything but turn around in her chair as her father went in circles around her.

  “And it was more than that. The digital age isn’t about pounding the pavement anymore. I was filling out applications online, too. When I say Arcanium was the only place to take me in, I mean it. So I thought outside the box and I got this job. Lots of kids take a gap year. I think the promise of employment is a good reason to take one.”

  “You call the circus ‘employment’?” her dad scoffed. “It’s a joke. It’s a juvenile joke.”

  “I beg to differ, Mr. Barrett,” Madoc said, seamlessly weaving through the mounts without so much as losing his balance.

  Caroline wished she’d seen him get on with the outer part of the carousel moving so fast. It wasn’t safe, but she bet it was a sight to see.

  And now the three of them were
getting some outside attention by the riders. She was sure her shaking hands and her terrified expression added that something special to the scene.

  Caroline knew in a second what her dad thought of Madoc when he looked over the bare-chested fortune teller with unconcealed disdain. Cotton trousers, beaded leather belts and brass bracelets were hard to take seriously in her dad’s suit-and-tie world.

  “Who the hell are you?” her dad asked.

  “Bell Madoc, the owner and co-manager of Arcanium,” Madoc replied. He didn’t offer his hand. It wouldn’t have been accepted.

  “So you’re the one who roped her into this dog-and-pony freak show,” her dad said.

  Caroline winced.

  “I’ve heard of men like you. What have you been doing to my daughter? Whatever it is, you won’t get away with it,” her dad said. He tried to intimidate Madoc with his greater height. But Madoc could not be intimidated, and her dad didn’t want to get too close to Madoc’s bare chest, as though it was diseased.

  “Come on, Caroline. We’re going home right now. You don’t have to stay here.”

  He thought she was being forced to stay here by Madoc? Well, that wasn’t too far off the mark, actually, but not in the way that he thought. It wasn’t like she’d become the carousel engineer against her will. That part had been legit. It was the rest of the circus she hadn’t signed on for.

  But as she got used to the demonic side of Arcanium—as much as a person could, anyway—she didn’t want to leave anymore. Maybe two weeks ago and in a normal circus, she would have exulted at her dad coming to save her, but not now. And not like this, his insistence that she didn’t know what she was doing or what she wanted or what it took to get it. He wanted her to be an adult, but when she made a decision he didn’t like, he thought he could just waltz in and demand that she be an adult on his terms.

  Caroline might have made a mistake becoming a part of Arcanium. There were things she could admit she liked, but it was wreaking havoc on her moral compass, and she was not going to get used to occupying the same space as predators who preyed on humans.